


Falls the Shadow

by Nemo_the_Everbeing



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Invasion, Blue Hair, F/M, Giant Fish, Horror, Kissing, Minor Violence, Nightmares, Shadowmen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 65,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing/pseuds/Nemo_the_Everbeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be nothing more than a seaside holiday for two old friends to relax and recharge, but something went wrong.  Then a lot of things went wrong.  Now, as Ace deals with the emotional fallout of a realization that could put an end their decade-long friendship, the Doctor discovers something potentially deadly about the world on which they've stopped.  And then the darkness falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been a labor of love. It's been in the works for months, and was written as a test to see if I could write all-out ship. And I think it turned out pretty well. However, it couldn't have been done without the aid of certain people, places and things. In no particular order, I'd like to thank Zircon, my badass beta; the Virgin Islands; Copic Markers; T. S. Elliott; the cast and crew of "Doctor Who," with particular thanks to Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred; Jon Pertwee, for reasons odd and mysterious; the internet; Stephen King; Arthur C. Clarke; and every fish on Earth.

It was one of those days when everything was going too well.  When the stars aligned and Sagittarius was in the house of whatever-it’s-supposed-to-be-with and all that.  The point was, everything was . . . perfect.  And that wasn’t right.  It was something Ace had learned during her years with the Doctor: nice, quiet moments just couldn't last.  Alien invasions, deadly epidemics, hordes of things which she'd only seen in horror movies; all of it became a matter of course around him. 

 

Sometimes she had to wonder if it didn't happen _because_ of him.  It was as if the universe, to balance out his good, had to throw all the bad everywhere at him.  The question which had been plaguing her for years, that little worry which had followed her since he had manipulated Davros into destroying Skaro was this: if he was not purely good (and she had no delusions about that) then was the bad purely bad?  Was she so caught up in his wake that she only saw the universe through his eyes?  Was there anything of the her-before-him left, or was she nothing but a reflection of him?  Were any of his companions throughout the years any more than that?

 

And should she really be thinking this sort of thing when he was—for once—coming through with a quiet holiday by the sea in fine style?  The ocean was endless and a wonderfully alien purple, the moons were a beautiful shade of pale jade, and the flowers scenting the night air were sweet without being cloying.  And best of all, there wasn’t a monster in sight.  Not even a large spider.

 

It was so different to their last seaside holiday.  The horrors on Coralee were the sort of thing that would be featured in her more vivid nightmares for a long time to come, although they did have that one terrific evening before everything went to hell.  She could still remember the surprising tang of that green wine and the Doctor’s double take upon seeing her dress.  She wondered if she could find that dress again.  Surely she'd kept it.

 

Further out to sea, a boat sped through the surf and the purple of the water was displaced by a bioluminescent blue glow.  She stepped into the shallows and swirled one foot about.  Another trail of blue followed her toes, reminding her of the light-patterns made by sparklers on Bonfire Night.

 

"Enjoying the holiday?" a familiar voice asked.  He hadn't been there a moment before, but his sudden appearance wasn't a surprise.  He always popped up unexpected and unannounced, so she'd come to always expect him.

 

"Hmm," she said, digging her toes through the white sand and feeling the grains oozing up between them.  A small, tubular fish poked its head out of the seabed, gazed at her with its bulging eyes for a few seconds, and then sucked on her little toe.  She leaned down to detach the fish, and the water shimmered around her hand.  "Why does the water glow here?"

 

"Little creatures," he said in that low, sleepy purr he used when all was right with the worlds.  He strolled over to her, his plaid trousers rolled up to mid-calf and his feet bare.  He still had his pullover on, but his suit jacket, tie, hat, and umbrella were gone.  It all left him looking strangely normal for the beach.  In fact he would have been _perfectly_ normal if not for those odd red question marks adorning his pullover.  And even those seemed only a slight undercurrent of peculiarity.  For once, she and the Doctor complemented each other rather well.  The green wrap-skirt and off-the-shoulder coral top she wore over a black two-piece swimsuit were just as appropriately out of place.  A combination of bought on the planet and brought in her rucksack. 

 

He crouched next to her, the ragged ends of his hair picking up the pale green moonlight as he waggled his fingers through the water.  The fish darted between them but didn't engage.  She noted with lazy interest that his fingers didn't ignite any of the bioluminescence hers had as they ran through the lavender shallows.

 

He noticed her watching and responded to the unasked question.  "Different body temperature.  The microbes respond to your warmth."

 

"Whereas you . . ."

 

"Same temperature as the water.  Maybe a bit cooler.  The ocean will catch up through the night.  In the morning we'll be much of a kind, the ocean and I."

 

"I forget that about you, you know," she said.  "That same-on-the-outside, different-on-the-inside thing.  Even after all these years, I forget sometimes."

 

His quick, sly little grin flashed.  "There are moments when I forget you’re different to me, too."

 

She snorted.  "That would make me a Time Lord, right?  I’m not sure the universe is ready for that.  Going about regenerating, living for millennia . . . oh, that's one warped sense of humor you’ve got there, Professor."  Feeling she might have upset the quiet mood a little, she added, "Mind you, it would be nice to travel with you that bit longer."

 

He nodded, his head bowed and eyes trained on the fish.  It was worse for him, she knew, when he was confronted with her mortality; how short her life was, how delicate her balancing act to keep it.  Their lives rarely consisted of paddling about in the shallows of a purple sea, and more than once she'd been certain they'd both be killed.  Not such a problem for him, of course, as he'd just wake up in a new body and start the whole dance again, but she only got one go-around.  Given their usual adventures, the odds were bound to catch up with her eventually.  A bomb would go off or an alien would be that much faster than she, and that would be that.  No more Ace.

 

For this short time, though, there was no danger of death.  No danger of anything worse than an over-curious fish sucking on her toes, so she shouldn't dwell on problems best left for later.

 

The Doctor stood up, accidentally sloshing water across her knee.  She was tempted to splash him back, maybe give him a tackle which would land him waist-deep in lavender water, but settled for flicking little droplets at his trouser-legs.  He gave her a curious look and she gave him a wide, open grin.  He rolled his eyes and she laughed.  He gave up and smiled right back, then reached down and pulled her to her feet. 

 

"Come on, Ace," he said.

 

"Where to?  I thought we were being boring and staying in."

 

He tapped her nose and his grin grew more mysterious.  Not to mention smug.  He offered her his arm but didn't say a word.  After glaring failed to move him, Ace gave up and slipped a hand through the crook of his elbow.  Let him have his little intrigues.  He always enjoyed them, and she'd learned to tolerate a great deal of this sort of thing. 

 

He drew her along the beach, the night waves lapping in two different directions across their feet.  He told her about opposing lunar tides and the presence of a mineral she couldn't pronounce in the water.  He told her about the strange stratosphere of the planet.  He told her of the fish miles-long in the depths of the oceans which sang so hauntingly that composers from all over the galaxy came to the planet just to dive in submersibles and hear them.  He told her of an as-yet undiscovered aquatic civilization which was building vast cities on the bottom of the sea where the light never touched and where the sand was black, and the beings in that civilization breathed the methane bubbles which rose from the bottom.  He told her of the telepathic crystalline life-forms at the poles which were consulted as oracles by the populace and others, but which could only tell you what you wanted to hear and nothing more.  His voice rose and fell, and for once she didn't interrupt.  She just listened as he spun tales of the planet and its inhabitants, of the past and future histories of a place they were just passing through.

 

The tide came in as they walked, and they were knocked stumbling by the sudden onslaught of a particularly aggressive wave.  They laughed like children as they staggered and clung to one another in an attempt to steady themselves.  Ace looked down to see that they were now hip-deep in purple water.  She whooped as the tide dragged her skirt off, leaving her in her swimsuit bottoms.  She went tearing after the floating bit of cloth, catching it a few yards away, but by then she was up to her neck, and her ponytail floated on top of the water in reaching tendrils.  She half-swam, half-waded back to the Doctor, holding her skirt aloft and calling out her victory.

 

They slogged out of the water, and she wrapped her skirt back around her waist.  They took one look at each other and began to laugh again.  "Maybe we should go back to the hotel and change into something slightly less soaking wet," she said.

 

"Perhaps we should," he said.

 

"And seeing as you’ve made plans, how about a hint on what I should change into.  Or should I just take a stab, see if I get it right?"

 

"Oh, stab away," he said, "just make sure it's a bit of a formal stab, hmm?"  He strolled on down the beach, dripping a little trail of water behind him as he went.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

The Doctor felt out of place without his usual accoutrements.  He had never understood the need to wear something different day after day.  In fact, he found the static reality of a single look comforting.  A tiny concession to his Gallifreyan roots, he supposed, but he accepted it.

 

Nonetheless, there came a moment in every Time Lord's life when he actually had to dress to impress.  So, letting his third personality take over for a while, he'd dug into his Gladstone bag (specially linked to the TARDIS wardrobe room a few centuries ago, along with a few other bits of luggage and a pocket or two in each of his jackets) and slipped into something impressive.

 

 

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror.  He turned to check his appearance, but froze.  For a moment he saw the image of another man standing behind him.  A tall man in a bottle-green frockcoat.  A man with longish, curling hair and a distance in his eyes. 

 

Seven gives way to eight whatever the count.

 

He looked away and looked back.  The image was gone.  He shook his head at his own worry and speculation.  Worry was pointless.  Occasionally time tripped a bit and things would flow wrong.  It was best not to dwell, as speculation was even worse than worry.  It was best to believe that such changes were still distant possibilities.  Especially for her sake.  She wouldn't understand that it was still him.  From her point of view, he had to concede, it wouldn't be.  This personality would become one in the multitude.  Aspects of him would be mixed with the others and something new.  His mind would still exist, but it would be a whisper, something itching at the back of the eighth man's head.  Behind a face that had changed.  And she . . . she liked him as he was.

 

Of course, the question was, would this starched and pressed version of the Doctor meet with Ace’s approval?  The formality would normally drive him a bit mad, but his carefully laid plans called for it. 

 

It felt like an odd sort of evening.  The last time he’d sensed this mood had been on Coralee.  That had been an odd sort of evening too: currents in the air, layers that weren't present between Ace and himself when they were barreling through life at their usual faster-than-light speed.  Things were simplified when mortal danger was an issue.  Mortal danger sometimes even seemed preferable to odd evenings. 

 

But odd evenings seemed to be on the agenda, and it was not for him to say otherwise.  The reality of their situation was that everything sank to stillness after a few short hours of inaction.  As things settled, dimensions and realities tended to settle too, landing in deep drifts like new-fallen snow.

 

He remembered diving into a snowdrift headfirst when he was small.  Come to think of it, he did it again during his second incarnation, but that was just typical.  He smiled, pulling himself to his full, if not particularly impressive, height.  "Not bad," he said to his mirror-self.  "Not bad at all."  Now all that remained was to ensure that Ace dressed appropriately as well.

 

As if she were reading his thoughts, Ace chose that moment to curse loudly through the wall separating their rooms.  His smile grew.  He was well aware that their unfortunate encounter with the tide had cost her the only nice outfit she'd brought.  Of course, that was why he'd brought a second, smaller valise.  He picked it up, strolled to the adjoining door, and then knocked.

 

"Oi," she shouted, "not decent in here."

 

He unlatched her lock by a quick fiddle with a hair-pin he found in his pocket (he wasn’t sure why he had a hairpin in his pocket, unless it was for just such an eventuality), opened the door a crack, and dropped the valise through, shutting the door as soon as his task was done.  He listened to her footsteps as she approached; the slight creak of the leather as she picked up the bag.  Once he was satisfied that Ace was inspecting the valise, he moved away from the door, wondering what the TARDIS had in mind.  Her selection for him had been far from the norm, and he couldn't imagine she'd give Ace any old frock. 

 

He pulled a book from his bag and glanced at the cover.  "Childhood's End," by Arthur C. Clarke.  He shook his head and wondered what, precisely, the Old Girl meant by that.  She always had something to say, his TARDIS.

 

"You rigged a bag to hook up with the wardrobe room and you didn't tell me?" Ace's voice rang through the door.  The Doctor chuckled but didn't feel the need to answer.  He settled down into the armchair kindly provided by the hotel and cracked open his book.

 

After maybe ten minutes of reading, a rap came at the door from the hall.  "Ready to go?" Ace called.

 

He sprang up, left the book on the table (no need to get a bookmark with an eidetic memory) and hurried to the door.  He flipped the latch and slid open the heavy wood paneling, peering out expectantly.

 

And standing there was a Time Lady. 

 

He knew that cut, that fabric. It fit like a glove, as did most clothing provided by the TARDIS.  The upper silhouette hugged every one of Ace’s curves and possessed a low cowl-back, while the skirt flowed out from her waist and hung in loose folds to her ankles.  The fabric itself was satin woven with nanocircuitry.  The swirls of yellow, blue, purple, green and red which made up the temporal vortex played over it, colors blooming into the blackness of space with swirling tendrils.  The image was so real that he could see every flicker of every star, and pick out the constellation Kasterborous. 

 

Even her hair was something he remembered from his brief—and usually unwanted—stopovers on his home planet.  She’d piled it up on her head, although bits had got away from her to fall about her face.  She was the most shocking mixture of the elegance of his home and the sheer vitality of Ace. 

 

The Doctor was aware that he must look confused, upset even.  "Goodness," he said, trying for some semblance of clarity.  "This is what she picked out for you?"

 

"Why?" she asked, disappointed.  "What's wrong with it?" 

 

He heard the unspoken question, and it hung in the air between them.  ‘What's wrong with me?’

 

"Oh!" he said, backpedaling as he recognized his affront.  "Oh, no, you look very nice.  It's just . . . I didn't expect the Old Girl to dress you in Gallifreyan semi-formal."

 

She looked down at the outfit, a grin no self-respecting Time Lady would have worn lighting up her face.  "This is Gallifreyan?"

 

"Probably current fashion, too, knowing the TARDIS's databanks."

 

"Wicked," Ace said, twirling for him.  The vortex spun with her, a perfect replica of the original.  She had her head down and she watched the play of the colors.  Then she looked up and said, "You mentioned something about forgetting I wasn't a Time Lord?"

 

Yes, he had.  And undoubtedly the TARDIS had picked a theme for the night based on that.  On a silly wish that his companions could live as long as he, that their lives wouldn't always be so butterfly short.  Time always seemed to be an enemy when it came to his friendships.  It would be nice if, for this companion only, that might change.  Trying to cover the leaden weight which settled itself around his hearts, he snorted and said, "You'd find it quite dull."

 

"Like hell I would!  I always wanted to playact that I was some posh lady."  She sidled closer, catching his eye with one of those pleading puppy looks she'd copied from him.  "Come on, Professor," she said.  "Just for the evening."

 

And in a split-second, he made a decision.  He gave in to the little voice in his head (it sounded suspiciously like his second personality with its exuberance and hope) that said, 'Yes!  Say yes!'  "All right, then.  For tonight, we're two Time Lords out for a spot of entertainment."  His hand, buried in one of his pockets, was filled with one, then two unidentifiable somethings.  He pulled them out, smiling, and passed one to her. She looked down to see a full-collar necklace made of a web of crimson-orange jewels.  Set in its center was a gold pendant bearing the symbol of the Prydonian Academy.  She glanced up at him.  He said, "It seems we’re in an ostentatious mood today.  Here we go: turn around and I'll fix it on for you."

 

Ace turned and held the necklace over her shoulder.  He retrieved it and slipped it about her throat.  The catch was a long sliding bar which fit into a hinge and then twisted closed.  He had to brush little wisps of hair away from the nape of her neck after he’d secured it, sweeping them out from under the gems.  She turned back to him.  "I give up," she said.  "Gallifreyan zodiac sign?"

 

He had to look away.  The dress and the symbol were filling him with a sort of bitter nostalgia.  She didn't deserve him moping because the TARDIS was taking a joke too far, so he occupied himself with trying to affix a gold and silver tie-pin with the same symbol onto his tie.  Alas, fixing a tie-pin upside down required more of his coordination than he could currently command.  The harder he tried, the more it tilted askew.  Ace rolled her eyes and took over, fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar implement before she got the idea (stabbing is a universal sort of thing) and fixed it in the right way. 

 

She stepped back and there was a slightly uncomfortable pause.  He felt awkward and strange.  The clothing and the evening and the tangles of them in the air were making him unsure of his footing.  He decided to indulge himself a little, to really believe that she was a Time Lady: they’d both been raised in that repressive and stifling Gallifreyan society.  Ace understood exactly where all his idiosyncrasies came from, why he could never stay in one place, because she felt the same.  She was functionally immortal, just like him.  And if he could pretend that much, perhaps he could go one step further.  He had never been exiled.  They were two Time Lords sneaking out in a borrowed TARDIS to see how the rest of the galaxy lived.

 

"It's the symbol of the Prydonian Academy on Gallifrey," he told her, his tone lightening with his thoughts.  "My alma mater, and now, apparently, yours."

 

"What's that make me, then?"

 

"A temporal engineer, probably, although I hear that their temporal philosophy department is coming along nicely."  He smiled.  “I have it.  You’re a TARDIS engineer.  You’ve been learning about TARDIS repair and the basics of its function long enough to fool people.”

 

He offered her his arm and she took it.  They strode off down the hallway.  "So,” Ace said in a caricature of the plummy tones of a 1950s BBC announcer, “how does one go about being a Time Lord?"

 

"Time Lady for you," he said. "As for how to behave, just remember that we are, by and large, insufferably pretentious and self-satisfied."  He smiled at the less pleasant memories of a stultifying life on Gallifrey.

 

"Pack of boring snobs, then?"  Her voice was back to normal.  He was glad about that.  Ace had many talents, but an ear for accents was not one of them.

 

"Precisely.  Oh, and if anyone asks, just add a few hundred years to your age."  He stopped, turned, and looked her over in all mock-seriousness.  She composed herself and stood under the scrutiny, both of them very much enjoying their little game.  "Not your first body, certainly," he said.  "Second or third, I should think.  Hmm . . . second."

 

"So I'm a two-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old TARDIS engineer on my second body."

 

His grin was honest, and for once he hid nothing behind it but a bit of sorrow that such a thing wasn't really true.  "Sounds plausible to me."

 

"And what, pray tell," she asked in her archest tones, "is a Time Lady like me doing with an old reprobate like you?"

 

Oh, but she sounded like Romana!  He took her by the hands, swung them both about in a circle and said, "Why, you're off to see the galaxies!  Perfect occupation for a young Time Lady newly graduated."

 

He spun her back to his side and then led her off, back on their original course.  Ace held herself as elegantly as possible.  As they moved through the more-or-less deserted hall, her whole bearing seemed to change.  This was the woman she might have been in a different life, born on a planet of static perfection and ivory beauty.  It was as though the spirit of his people passed into her.  Her footsteps grew more confident.  She could own this planet in seconds if she wanted to, and she knew it.  This woman was a mistress of time, revered by some as a goddess.  She bore a cultural heritage so ancient most would call it mythology.  That fire he so associated with Ace was banked under a cloak of wisdom and infinite possibilities, but it wasn’t extinguished.  It was there just enough to mark Ace’s Time Lady persona as different from the genuine article.  And frankly, hers was better.  It was what he’d always wished a Time Lady _could_ be.

 

Perhaps she was indulging a few stray imaginings of her own, and he wasn't the only one who would enjoy an evening of denying reality.  For one night, they would both be other people and see the universe in a different light.

 

They took the lift down to the lobby and strolled out onto gas-lit streets.  The gas on this planet created pale blue flames reminiscent of the bioluminescence in the ocean, so the whole of the city bathed in contrasting blue and green glows of artificial and natural lighting, casting double-shadows everywhere.  Ace's dress and the pendant at her throat gave off the subtlest suggestion of a light of their own, but she didn't react.  She looked as though she wore that sort of outfit every day.

 

They passed couples just as elegantly dressed, but none of the ladies seemed superior, and most looked jealous.  A few were awe-struck, and the Doctor wondered if it was because they knew what she was supposed to be, or if the sheer alien beauty of her dress told them without the foreknowledge. 

 

"You haven't told me where we're going," she said.

 

"I haven't."

 

"Fine," she said, glancing at him with a bit of the usual fire in her eyes.  "Keep your secrets.  Won’t take me long to suss it out."

 

"Oh, I doubt you'll guess this," he said, all Time Lord smugness.

 

Ace wasn't as educated as many of his companions had been, but she was possibly the smartest.  She picked up on things so quickly.  For example, the mannerisms of a Time Lord: the arching of an eyebrow, the quirking of her lips in a subtle smirk . . . he recognized it all.  He wasn’t certain she knew she was doing it, but it was absolutely perfect.  Oh, Rassilon, but she would have made a brilliant Time Lady.  "Let's see," she said, "we're far more posh than we've any right to be, so it's somewhere nice.  Possibly somewhere we couldn’t even get into without looking like this."

 

"Mmm," he said, noncommittal, interested to see how far she could take her extrapolation and how accurate she might be.

 

"The TARDIS gave me flats instead of heels, which might point to more than me standing about like a coat-tree."

 

"Perish the thought."

 

"So, I'm thinking we're going dancing."

 

Very close.  "Yes," he said.

 

She smiled her triumph.

 

"And a bit more besides."

 

"Oh, Professor!" 

 

For a moment, as she vented her exasperation, she was a dizzying mix of the girl from Perivale he had known, the courageous woman he'd come to know, and a Time Lady he'd barely met.  "I told you that you wouldn't guess," he said.

 

She looked for a second as though she would punch him in the arm, but she reined herself in and settled for glaring.  ‘Very good, Ace,’ he thought.

 

Midway down the large central road—devoid of vehicles but filled with beings soaking up the nightlife under the two green moons—a man caught sight of them.  He had blue hair, marking him as native to this particular planet, but his was a darker blue than most.  It matched his navy blue suit.  This man stopped, his eyes going round as he stared at Ace.  Well, the Doctor thought, it was probably best she realize that being a Time Lady meant receiving one or two odd stares.

 

"Professor," she said, _sotto voce_, "we've got an audience."

 

"We've had one since we stepped out of the lobby," he said.  People were milling about, trying to look as though they weren’t gawking.  Their efforts weren’t working that well.  When Time Lords wished to be inconspicuous, they were considered surprisingly drab.  But on those rare occasions when they wanted attention, no one would forget the sight.

 

"That bloke over there," she said, gesturing with her chin.  "Now, either he's taken an unhealthy interest in my chest—something that would cause me to break my Time Lady cool and go and thump him one—or he's recognized the symbol on my necklace."

 

There was usually one in every crowd who did, for whatever reason, know the symbol.  It was often associated with Time Lords in general, as well as the academy specifically, and those who studied Gallifrey for any short time would have seen it.  Still, to recognize it at such a distance, and to have such a pointed reaction . . . "Interesting," he said.

 

She tightened her grip on his arm.  "Oh, no.  _Not_ getting involved.  We were going somewhere, remember?  Mysteries, schemes and master plans can wait until after our holiday."

 

He blinked and looked at her.  In Ace’s face he saw a determination that barely masked the weariness.  It was something else he forgot about humans: they couldn't always keep up with him.  Sometimes they got tired and needed a break from adventures.  There’d been a time when he’d simply let them go when they reached that stage, that adventure-saturation.  Not now.  Particularly with Ace, he was determined to make it last. If that meant more relaxing holidays than he'd experienced in all his lives combined—if it meant life in general at a slower pace—then so be it.  Maybe he was getting old, but a slower pace was turning out to be agreeable.  He was just distracted back into breakneck speeds rather easily.

 

Not this evening, though.  This evening was about her; about not being themselves.  There would be no rushing off to save civilization.  The galaxy could take care of itself for a few hours while they had a bit of fun and Ace recharged. 

 

“Of course,” he said.  “No mysteries tonight.  The Doctor is otherwise engaged."  They walked on, ignoring the man as he continued to stare.  "Besides," he added once they were out of hearing-range, "it's far more likely his fascination had nothing to do with your necklace."

 

She couldn't help herself and punched him in the arm.  She did recover quickly, sliding back close as they continued their walk with only the briefest of hiccups.

 

As they neared their destination, a sense of anticipation built up.  How, he wondered, would she react to this?  This wasn't their usual social situation, especially for the rough-around-the-edges Ace.  Still, it was good to expand one’s horizons.

 

The building was magnificent, tall and ornamental with arches of white marble and gingerbreading wrought in gold.  The entire edifice was built to impress and the Doctor felt Ace's fingers tighten on his arm.  "Are we going there?" she asked in a whisper.

 

"Yes."

 

Her eyes lit up with understanding.  "We're going to a ball, aren't we, Professor?" she asked.

 

"Excellent," he said. 

 

She faltered, doubt on her face.  "Um," she said, "this isn't my sort of place.  You know me: barely fit for human consumption, let alone the great and rich of the universe.  I'm just—"

 

"You," he said, stopping and looking her in the eye, "are a Time Lady and a graduate of the most prestigious academy on Gallifrey.  Not a one of them can ever aspire to that."

 

"They'll see through that lot in a second."

 

"Not if you believe it."  He touched her bare shoulder gently.  "Come now, Ace, you were so certain a moment ago.  You had me believing, and I've met the genuine article.  None of them will have a clue what a Time Lady is supposed to be."  He gave her an encouraging smile.

 

She had a ghost of a smile on her own face.  Then she drew herself up, squared her shoulders, and lifted her head in a perfectly imperious manner.  "Right then," she said, "into battle we go."

 

Well, possibly not what he had been hoping for, but a start, and enough of a foundation that she could build upon as the night wound on.  He wouldn't be surprised if she had a complete back story by the end of the night, not to mention a great many suitors.  He guided her up the steps toward the entrance, and wondered whether that extraordinary dress incorporated—in true Ace style—the multitude of weapons she’d be using to beat back unwanted attention.

 

There was really only one way to find out.


	2. Across/Into a Chasm

Ace wasn’t sure she’d ever even _imagined_ a room like this one.  The ceiling soared overhead at such an unfeasible height that it was a wonder she could make out the paintings of gods and demons doing battle.  The tiny, blue-haired daubs of paint that represented the populace were—as always happened in this sort of story—caught in the middle. 

 

Beneath the scenes of battle and mayhem was a gigantic, rectangular hall.  Small, gilt tables were arranged at one end, while the other was cleared as a dance floor. In a small partition at the uncluttered end, a chamber orchestra was setting up.  Ace frowned at the small group dubiously; given the dimensions of the venue, she wasn’t convinced the whole of the London Philharmonic would be enough to fill the space with sound. 

 

Huge, stained-glass windows crowded along walls the length of the hall, each depicting a different imposing figure.  Probably more gods.  Among them she spotted what looked like twisting, abstract ice sculptures.  It took her a few seconds to realize that she was looking at the crystalline oracles the Doctor had mentioned earlier.  More than that, there was a bulbous fish with manta-like fins, a long-necked alien with translucent skin and fluorescent organs, a huge moth with vaguely human features, and . . .

 

And there, captured in stained glass, was an old man in white robes with a silver sort of halo-collar-thing rising from his shoulders to frame his head.  He was backed by a huge version of the Doctor’s Prydonian symbol.  The caption, the TARDIS translated for her, said ‘The Lord of Time.’

 

She nodded up toward the window and said, "I hope we weren't going for any sort of anonymity."

 

He waved off the remark.  "These are old gods, Ace," he said.  "No one—well, almost no one—believes us to be genuine deities.  More of a hop, skip, and a jump away from the real thing."

 

“So you’re just an old-fashioned demigod?”

 

“_We_ are, I suppose, yes.”

 

“Right.  _Us_.  Okay then, what are the duties of demigods?  Speaking in tongues?  Performing miracles?  Virgin sacrifice at dawn?”

 

“Good gracious me, no.  This particular demigod has put a stop to that sort of thing more than once in his time.”

 

They'd been ushered into the grand ballroom by an entire football team of butlers, discernable from the ball’s attendees by their starched maroon jackets and improbably shiny pantaloons.  Those closest to Ace and the Doctor had already caught a whiff of who they were supposed to be.  Given that, she was certain word would soon spread to the other guests.  Wouldn’t be long before things got potentially awkward.  She’d have to stick close to the Doctor if she was going to be questioned about life on Gallifrey.  Why did he have to be so damned closed-mouthed about it, anyway?  She wouldn’t even know what was a plausible lie.

 

The Doctor believed she could do this, though, and there had been more than one instance when he'd known her abilities better than she did.  So she put her trust in the Doctor and her faith in her ability to lie through her teeth.  Besides, even if she didn’t do anything besides glue herself to the buffet table all night, well, it _was_ a glorious buffet table.  That part of her which was constantly craving good food was rejoicing.

 

“For the record,” the Doctor said pointedly, “we don't eat nearly the amount that humans do.”

 

Ace couldn’t tear her eyes away from the glories of alien finger-food.  "Do they know that?"

 

"Well, no."

 

"Then that's one of those facts I'll just have to fudge.  Because make no mistake, Mr. Demigod, that chocolate fountain is screaming for me."

 

He chuckled.  "Meet you at a table, then?"

 

Ace nodded absently at one of the elegant little wood, marble, and gilt creations.  She briefly wondered how she could possibly sit there without crushing something.  She'd have to think light.

 

She did her best to glide across the floor, as a Time Lady should: head back, look down your nose, small steps (didn’t get her to the food nearly fast enough), let the dress do the talking.  She got to the buffet table without tripping over her own feet and decided that a minor celebration was in order in the form of a glass of punch. The punchbowl was, inevitably, an extraordinary affair.  Wrought in solid gold—at least she assumed it was gold and not some alien approximation—to portray a rolling seascape, it looked like it belonged with the crown jewels in the Tower of London rather than holding the refreshments at a party.  It was filled to brimming with lavender punch that smelled vaguely alcoholic.  She was about to order up a glass from a likely looking bloke holding a ladle when she remembered the Doctor's customary abstinence.  He broke it every now and then, but only on very rare occasions.  What were the rules for Time Lords drinking?  Was she to be deprived of booze as long as she played at being a Time Lady?

 

She ordered non-alcoholic punch rather than risk a _faux pas_, and consoled herself by dipping six strawberries into the chocolate fountain and snagging a nice assortment of cheeses.  Cheese was refined, right?

 

She made her way back to their gilded meeting-spot.  Of course, she was barely a meter from sitting down and tucking in when some stuffed-shirt young man had to waylay her.  "I say, I couldn't help but notice your rather topping beauty," he said.  No time wasted on small talk, this one.

 

She recalled the one and only time she'd seen someone make a pass at the Doctor, and how confused he'd seemed.  So she put on a vague look and said, "Thank you," as though her beauty were both perfectly obvious and perfectly inconsequential. 

 

For some reason, her distance made Stuffed-Shirt fawn even harder.  Take a dash of groveling, a teaspoon of smitten and a heaped helping of lust, and she pretty much had the whole feeling of the kid.  "Where are you from?" he asked.  “I mean, you can’t hail from around here.  Not with that hair.  Not that I don’t like your hair.  Quite the opposite, really.  Think it’s altogether spiffing.  But not local.”  He wavered, an intense and intensely drunk look of concentration creasing his features.  Then his eyes lit up and he blurted, “So that means you’re not from around here!  Where are you from?  I already asked that.”

 

Well, at least the first person she had to tell was drunk enough that he wouldn’t notice if her story didn’t come together in certain places.  "I am from Gallifrey," she said.  "Your planet is . . . pleasant."  That was snobbish enough.

 

"Are you something like a queen?" he asked.  The Doctor, who had been making his way toward them, stopped and pressed a hand to his mouth, his eyes twinkling with mirth.  The self-satisfied git.  He wasn't being beset by amorous kids in . . . were those tights?  They were!  They were tights!  Perfect.  She would get accosted by Kid Shakespeare. 

 

"I am a Time Lady," she said.  "Now, if you'll excuse me."

 

"You're leaving?" he asked, looking like his world was falling apart.  “But we were having a bally good conversation!”

 

"I'm here with someone," she said.  It was one of the oldest excuses in the book, but one which rarely failed.  After all, what was the kid supposed to say to the big old 'taken' sign she had just hung out?  She brushed past Kid Shakespeare without a backward glance, willing him to find some doe-eyed snippet to preen for.

 

The Doctor met her.  "Unwanted attention, Ace?" he asked, all innocence.

 

"You might say that," she said. 

 

“It’s not surprising, really,” he said.  “After all, his species and yours are nearly indistinguishable as far as physiology goes.  Interbreeding is entirely possibly.”  He waved a dismissive hand.  “He probably felt some sort of subconscious draw.”

 

“You say ‘subconscious draw’ again, and I’m going to hit you.”

 

He merely laughed.

 

She grumbled, "I don't remember this happening to you."

 

He shrugged.  "I never claimed to be a paragon of Gallifreyan beauty."

 

She rolled her eyes.  "Whereas I'm a looker?  Face it, Professor, we're neither of us going to be winning any beauty pageants."

 

He eyed her, said, "Don't be fatuous," and moved away to sit down.  Ace stood, blinking.  She'd been traveling with the Doctor for twelve years, and he'd never said—never even implied—that she was attractive.

 

Then again, they weren't supposed to be themselves that night, so the status quo didn't matter.  She allowed herself a momentary, dazzling grin when she was sure no one was looking.  Of course, the Doctor chose that moment to glance over his shoulder.  Maybe he caught the look on her face, maybe he didn't.  She tamped it down to a self-satisfied smirk and glided to her seat, moving at her own pace.  After all, she was a Time Lady, and his equal in every way.  That granted her certain privileges.  Like the way she could make the Doctor fidget as he waited for her, then the way she could hover expectantly by her seat.  He got the hint after a second and pulled out the chair for her.

 

As she put down her food and sat, he slid the chair in with her and said, "Nice trick."

 

"No idea what you're talking about," she said.

 

"Mmm-hmm.  And why did you wait?"

 

She put her hands in her lap and looked up at the distant ceiling, in a perfect imitation of his own disinterested expression.  "It's a lovely ballroom, isn't it?"

 

"Ace . . ." he growled.  Come to that, he was doing a fair imitation of the irritation Ace usually found when the Doctor got all aloof.  Nothing like a spot of role-reversal.

 

They caught one another's eye and Ace started to giggle.  He chuckled.  They were both laughing in seconds.  "Oh, dear," he said, "am I really that predictable?  Time was, my companions never knew what I was going to do next."

 

"How many of them stayed with you for twelve years?"

 

No answer for that.  He just reached across the table and tapped her nose, an odd sort of smile on his face.

 

"What?" she asked.

 

"Time was, I could guess what my companions would do."

 

"I'm inscrutable?"

 

"No, but whenever I start to believe that I know your every aspect, a new one appears.  Twelve years and here you are, surprising me all over again."

 

"Didn't know I had it in me?  Really, Professor, every girl plays at being rich when she's little."

 

"In between explosive experiments with her chemistry set, of course."

 

"Of course."  She popped a chocolate strawberry into her mouth.

 

"A successful raid on the buffet table?"

 

"Yeah, it was.  And before you say anything more about Time Lords not eating that often, I'll remind you that we're on holiday, and that the TARDIS still hasn't mastered making a proper chocolate strawberry."

 

He made a small shooing gesture which obviously meant 'go right ahead.'

 

Ace did.  Chocolate strawberries, cheese, and surprisingly good non-alcoholic punch.  The Doctor didn't have anything, probably because there was no water or lemonade in sight.  He just sat and looked relaxed, maybe even content.  A few days of sedentary life and he'd get itchy for worlds yet to be seen, wrongs yet to be righted, and he'd pop off in the TARDIS to satisfy his eternal wanderlust.  She'd do the same.  They were much of a kind in that respect—both creatures of perpetual motion.  A little stillness was fine, though, and the Doctor seemed to be soaking up the rare experience.

 

Ace looked about.  Wherever her eyes fell, people looked away and appeared slightly guilty.  They’d been staring.  She wondered how the Doctor and she looked to them; a mysterious couple adorned in the strange, hourglass symbols of the stained glass window, the moving patterns on her dress, and not a strand of blue hair in sight.  They were, Ace admitted to herself, worthy of a few stares.  They were intruders into the normal social order.  They were also elegant and interesting enough that the disturbance they created was acceptable.  And if the Doctor was being truthful—which he always was, except when he wasn’t—then she looked good.  That probably helped.

 

She left the other partygoers to their staring and looked back to the Doctor.  He was smiling away, his gaze flitting over one thing and then another, but always returning to her.  The smiles he directed her way seemed the most genuine and warm of the lot, and she couldn’t help but return them.  Humor and pleasure and contentment seemed such transient things for the Doctor: snatches of enjoyment in the midst of adversity.  It was novel, seeing him like this.

 

“You look pleased with yourself,” she said.

 

“It’s nice to push the boat out, once in a while.”

 

“You haven’t even tried the punch!”

 

“It isn’t compulsory.”

 

“So sitting on a not-so-comfortable chair at a shiny table getting stared at is your idea of fun?”

 

“I’ve had worse.”  He looked amused.  “Aren’t we having fun?”

 

“Of course we are.”

 

“And we _are_ Time Lords, remember?” the Doctor said with a wink.  “We deserve the stares.”

 

So he was smiling because she made a terrific Time Lady?  A thought struck her.  "Professor?" she asked.

 

"Hmmm?"

 

"Are you saying that . . ?"  She stopped, deciding she didn’t want to ask the question after all.  The answer could be difficult.  The idea had occurred to her that maybe the Doctor _liked_ this ‘her’—the ‘her’ who was refined and didn’t lob a can of nitro at anything that seemed threatening—better than the real thing.  And since he seemed in a truthful mood, liable to give the answer she didn’t want to hear, she decided to evade.  She smiled at him.  "So, this is a ball."

 

A flicker somewhere in the depths of his eyes told her that her evasion had been noted and would be remembered.  "Yes," he said, "it is."

 

"What does one do at these, aside from swanning about looking posh?"

 

"I suppose there may well be dancing later.  That sort of thing is customary."

 

"And will you dance?" she asked.

 

"Will you?"

 

"I asked first."

 

"But I’m much more patient."

 

She smirked.  "Fine.  I’ll dance if you will."

 

"A challenge?"  His smile became vaguely pointed.  The Doctor loved a challenge almost as much as he loved an intrigue.

 

"Have you ever danced before?" she asked.

 

"Oh, it's been a while.  Lifetimes, at least."

 

Ace recalled an awkward girl in a black strapless dress with a knee-length, ruffled skirt and a bow at least as wide as she was at the base of her spine.  She remembered that girl moving with disdain to cover embarrassment.  She'd been kicked out of that dance after beating up a boy who'd grabbed her breast when they'd danced.  The boy had been allowed to stay. 

 

"Yeah," she said, "been lifetimes for me, too."  She shook her head at herself.  “S’pose that sounds daft.  Twenty-eight years is just a blink for you, and here I feel like I’ve been several different people already.”

 

“Experience is subjective,” the Doctor said gently.

 

“Yeah.  Sometimes it surprises me, though.  How much I’ve changed.  And how much I _haven’t_ changed, too.  You know?”

 

“I think so.”

 

She leaned across the table and tapped him on the arm.  "There's a question for you, Professor: do Time Lords change outside the big changes?  I mean, are your—"

 

"Our."

 

"Right.  Are our personalities fixed throughout each lifetime, or do we grow the same as humans?"

 

"We wouldn't be a particularly successful race if we didn't," he said.  "But I suppose those of us who live away from Gallifrey have more cause to adapt than those who stay."

 

"So you do change."

 

"You’ve known me long enough to see for yourself.  What do you think?"

 

She thought back.  The problem with assessing any changes in the Doctor was that they were just as likely to be changes in her perspective.  Sixteen-year-old Ace was poles apart from the woman she was today.  Had she been so caught up in her own transformation that she'd missed his?  Just because she hadn’t seen it didn’t mean it didn’t exist.  "You've mellowed," she concluded.  "It used to be all taking the universe on with a brolly and a Panama hat—"

 

"And an ace up my sleeve."

 

"Always," she promised, more for herself than anything.  "But you've moved on from that."

 

"I no longer fight the good fight?"

 

"Oh, we still fight," she said.  "Some of our fights could even be called good, but we also do this."  She gestured about.  "We take breaks, anchor the TARDIS in the vortex on a whim just to redecorate the control room . . ."

 

"Yes, I am getting rather Victorian, aren't I?  Maybe the Old Girl chose this outfit in reaction to the new digs."  His smile faltered and his eyes fixed on something unseen.  "I do believe the next me will be a proper Victorian gentleman."

 

She frowned.  "Oi, I like that Panama hat, do you hear?  I want to see that about for a good long . . . at least until I'm gone.  All right?  And by gone, I mean dead, because there's no other way you're getting rid of me.  So this ‘you’ had best hang around for a long time yet."

 

"It would still be me," he ventured.

 

She shook her head, not wanting this conversation, but she felt the words gush out of her mouth even so.  "Not in all the ways that matter.  All the little details that make you who you are; that hat, the way you tap my nose, your voice: that's you.  Your memories aren’t there for me to see or touch."  To her shame, she was getting upset.  "I couldn't . . . I don't know what I'd . . . don’t you dare pull that on me!"

 

He was silent, awkward.  The more painful realities of the gap in culture which separated them, no matter what they pretended, stretched out wide and deep.  "Ace," he whispered.

 

"Easy fix, Doctor," she said, lifting her chin and regaining some of that Time Lady poise.  "Just don't die and you take care of this, no problem."

 

A sad little smile on his face.  "All right, it's a deal."

 

Ace felt inadequate, somehow, like she'd failed one of those initiative tests he used to give her.  It had been forever, but she still remembered the frustration of seeing that look on his face.  The one that told her she'd missed something vital or, worse still, got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely.  She fidgeted, feeling out of place.  She was just a little girl playing dress-up, make-believing a persona which was supposed to get her that step closer to who and what he was, but really only showed her the distance she couldn’t cover.  Ace as she really was could never be a Time Lady.  She couldn't even maintain that regal attitude for one evening.

 

She rose.  "I think I should—"  She was going to say 'leave' or maybe 'go back to the hotel and cry into my pillow like the big, pathetic girl I am', but the orchestra cued up and began to play.

 

The Doctor stood, slipped around the table, and touched her arm.  "Still planning to take me up on that challenge?" he asked, tentative.

 

Ace's breath whooshed out in what might have been a laugh.  "Afraid I haven't exactly been the life of the party, Professor," she said.  "Not what you'd hope from a Mistress of Time."

 

"This is a holiday, Ace.  Whatever's wrong, whatever's bothering you, let it go.  It'll be there tomorrow."

 

"Doctor, I—"

 

His words came tumbling out at the frantic pace he usually reserved for talking them out of a sticky situation involving their almost-certain deaths.  "I don't _care_ if you're not a Mistress of Time!  To be perfectly frank, they're a frightfully boring lot.  And not a one would ever create her own explosives, or take a baseball bat to a Dalek, or be caught dead with me."  He brushed a finger against her nose in a gentler form of his usual nose tap.  "Come on, Ace," he said.  His fingers, which hadn’t left her face, rested against her cheek.

 

Something in her flopped over, and she tried to suss out what it might be.  Maybe it was that she was noticing things about him that she never had before: he really was charming, and his smile had a strange, crooked sort of appeal.  He hadn’t aged at all since she’d started traveling with him twelve years ago, so she’d had ample time to study him, but for some reason she’d never really looked at the Doctor.  It had never been important. 

 

Only now she was looking, and what she was seeing—the impossible, frustrating whole of him—stirred odd, fluttering sensations in her gut.  She’d always associated him with safety and acceptance, had done without even thinking about it, but in this moment she wasn’t sure she felt safe.  Finding herself a bit breathless, she offered, "We've got work to do?"

 

"Precisely."  He didn't wait for her acquiescence, but took her hand and swept her into the eddy of dancers now moving across the floor in response to the alien music.  Ace didn't know the steps which everyone else seemed to know, but she found that the Doctor didn't either.  Perfectly coordinated courtiers swirled about them in a sea of rich, expensive fabric, and the Doctor, as always, made up his own steps as he went.  Ace couldn't mimic the motions of the courtiers, but it turned out that she knew exactly how to dance with the Doctor.  He twirled her, and the vortex in her skirt twirled too.  They came back together, holding one another close enough that Ace could feel each movement before it happened.  She let the Doctor lead.  Bit by bit, all the trepidation she felt about stepping into a foreign social situation—and lying to everyone about who she was, and not even knowing their dances—slipped away.  She felt relaxed.  More than that, even.  She felt almost euphorically separate from anyone but the man with whom she danced.  The other dancers simply had no bearing on beings who walked in eternity.  Ace laid her head on the Doctor's shoulder, looking out at the people.  The other dancers were so far from the cocoon that she and the Doctor shared, she felt as though she was watching them on a cinema screen.

 

And she saw something extraordinary: the others were changing their dancing to match the Doctor's steps.  They had watched closely, and one after another, began to mimic what they saw.  It was astonishing, the way the situation shaped itself around her; drew inspiration and meaning from her.  A stray memory fluttered through Ace’s mind: standing in the rain watching Charlton Athletic play at the Valley, cheering wildly as the new striker buried his debut goal, listening to a loan supporter nearby bellow out an entirely new chant in the striker’s honor . . . then, half a minute later, twenty-thousand all singing the same song.  So this was how it felt.  Never in her whole life had so many people held what she did as important.  And it was just a dance!  It was exhilarating, this power she had over people, though she felt an undertone of terror as well.  She wondered if the Doctor ever felt the same.  Maybe this was all old hat to him and he didn't even notice as people molded themselves to suit him.  Then again, maybe he _did_ notice.  Maybe it was why he liked traveling with her.  She’d always resisted changing herself to suit other people.  Sometimes she worried that she didn’t entirely succeed, but she resisted as hard as she could.

 

“Pondering something?” the Doctor asked.

 

She lifted her head.  They weren’t looking at each other, but rather were speaking directly into one another’s ear.  The dictionary definition of dancing cheek to cheek.  Ace would have laughed if her thoughts didn’t feel so serious.  “Realities of being a Time Lord.  Does it scare you, that title, what it does to people?”

 

“Mmm.  Sometimes.”  He tilted his head a fraction as he thought, and Ace felt the movement.  “Of course, I spend much of my time on pre-contact Earth, where the likelihood of someone understanding the term, let alone its full implications, is remote at best.  So I’m not that worried.”

 

He wasn’t the only one who’d spent most of their life on pre-contact Earth.  It was her home, if only technically.  And here she was, dancing with a demigod and setting trends for the upper echelons of an alien society.  In a flash she saw herself as she might have been, had Fenric never whisked her off to Iceworld.  Had she never met the Doctor . . .

 

“All my life, I really wasn’t anyone,” she whispered so softly that only he could hear.  “No.  Worse than that.  I was a delinquent.  A frustration to my mum, my teachers, pretty much everyone.  I wasn’t the kid anyone had hoped I’d be.  Holy terror as a teen.  And I felt . . . I just felt like I’d never . . . you know.  Go anywhere.  Do anything.”

 

She stopped, suddenly aware of what she was saying and to whom she was saying it.  She wondered if this was really the time for innermost thoughts.  But then, maybe the Doctor knew already.  He knew her better than anyone. 

 

So Ace went on.  “It was all there, mapped out for me, all grey and joyless and inevitable.  I’d stay in Perivale my whole life.  I’d get a job at Tesco’s, maybe get promoted from stacking shelves to the check-out till if I was really diligent.  And that’d be it: spinning my wheels and just digging myself in deeper.  Maybe I’d marry some bloke, have a kid or three, keep the whole sorry cycle moving.  And when I died, I’d look back at my life and think—was that it?  Few kids and a crappy supermarket job?”  She cast her eyes down and managed a half-smile.  “You know, my mum, she said it was about all I deserved.  I mean, I’m not blaming her.  Not anymore.  But that was what she said, and I dunno.  Maybe she was right.”

 

“Ace,” the Doctor said, his voice low and pained even though she couldn’t see his face.

 

“No, it’s okay,” she said, wanting to reassure.  She pulled back and met his gaze, her smile honest now, and full of light.  “I mean, that’s what I’m saying!  Look at me, Professor.  I’m a time traveler, dressed in a frock with the vortex playing all over it, and people do what I do.  If the thirteen-year-old me could see the me now, I don’t think she’d recognize me, or believe it if she did.”  She tightened her arms around him.  “Thanks for the evening.”

 

His gaze was even more intense than usual, and his voice was surprisingly rough.  “Your mother was wrong,” he said.

 

She’d tripped something in him, she was sure, but she couldn’t tell what.  His expression was upset and awkward, but his gaze still held that unfathomable intensity.  Their movements slowed, less a dance than a gentle sway as they both tried to figure out what was going on and what they were about to do.

 

Ace wondered if he understood that this was an invitation for a kiss.  If the whole evening was about straying from the norm, such a thing was justified.  A night of pretense wiped away the usual consequences: no terror of failure, no ruining all that they’d built for a crazy sort of what-may-be.  It’d be easy enough to laugh afterward and put it down to yet more play-acting. 

 

Easy.  Right.  Simultaneously, Ace felt completely removed from their reality and slapped in the face by it.  The Doctor himself had a confused, worried, fascinated look.  He didn’t grasp the full implications, but there was something new between them that was definitely dawning on him. 

 

Ace stood poised at a fork in the road.  Two choices stretched out before her.  On the one hand, there was their well-paved path with street lamps every ten feet.  It was beautiful, unique, thrilling, with surprises around every corner, but they’d been walking it for years.  They’d forged it carefully.  On the other hand there was a darker, narrower path.  She’d caught glimpses of it before, during those rare occasions when she’d allowed herself to consider the choice.  She’d always turned away from that darkness.  So much to lose.  So easy to get lost entirely.

 

Only now . . . now the dark didn’t seem so threatening.  Now the unknown was seductive rather than intimidating.

 

She leaned in.  He didn’t, but he didn’t lean away either.  She reached up with one hand to touch the side of his face.  “Doctor,” she breathed.

 

And then she felt some other dancer tread on her foot.  “Ow!” she yelped.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away immediately.

 

“Not you,” she said.  “Someone just stepped on my foot.”

 

He looked away, and a nervous smile skittered across his face.  “Enjoying the ball?” he asked.

 

She watched him, watched that shuttered, confused look on his face.  He knew what had almost happened, and his processing of the situation wasn’t speeding along.  He was probably stalled somewhere around ‘what on Gallifrey was she thinking?’

 

“Yeah,” she said, touching his arm.  “Loving it.”  He blinked.  Okay, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest of word choices under the circumstances.  The orchestra sped up into a livelier reel, and all the dancers around them began swirling at a mad pace.  She said, “Let’s dance.”

 

But some woman dripping in jewels had other ideas.  She swished up, older and more confident than Ace, her neon blue hair pinned atop her head with diamonds.  “You two must be the visitors from Gallifrey I’ve been hearing so much about,” she cooed.  Ace didn’t like her.  This vamp was eyeing the Doctor like he was a gaudy gem and she had an empty spot on her tiara.  She offered a limp, gloved hand.

 

Which the Doctor shook vigorously, much to her horror and Ace’s delight.  He knew just how to throw off any given situation.  “Hello,” he said, “I’m the Doctor, and this is my friend Ace.”

 

The woman regained her cool sweetness and gave him a smile guaranteed to leave cavities.  “The Doctor?” she asked.  “What, pray tell, are you a doctor of?”

 

“Oh, this, that, and the other,” he said.  “Ace is a TARDIS engineer.”

 

“Among other things,” Ace added.

 

The woman lowered her eyes so she looked at the Doctor through her lashes.  “A man of mystery.”

 

With this, the Doctor finally cottoned on to what, precisely, this harpy was after.  His eyes widened.  “Oh!” he exclaimed.  “Really, I . . . really.”

 

“How unusual it is to find a man I cannot fathom,” the woman went on, laying the charm on thick enough to suffocate.  “How rare.  How delicious.”

 

The Doctor was floundering like a landed fish, so Ace decided that she had to rescue him before he panicked or fainted or something else which might destroy their Time Lord cool.  Thinking fast rather than well, she slipped her arm through his and said in her haughtiest tones, “Doctor, I do believe this woman is attempting to initiate a mating procedure with you.”  She gave the woman a chilly smile.  “Is she not aware that we are physiologically incompatible?”

 

The woman was taken aback.  Affronted.  Clearly not a lady who got herself turned down that much. 

 

“It’s inefficient for you to pursue him,” Ace delivered her _coup de grâce_.  “I recommend you redirect your efforts in a more suitable direction.”  ‘Say, the nearest dog kennel,’ she added, but only to herself.  It seemed a bit too catty for a Time Lady. 

 

The woman flounced off, her blue hair bouncing as she went.  Ace smirked and pulled the unresisting Doctor back into the reeling dance.  He looked bemused and maybe a bit shifty.  The not-so-kiss hadn’t been forgotten, then.  Ace kicked herself mentally.  She had to plead temporary insanity.  Or temporary unreality.  Whatever the name, she pled that, because only _that_ could explain why she thought kissing the Doctor would have been a good idea.  Thank God for clumsy dancers and a well-placed high-society flirt.

 

“We are, actually,” the Doctor blurted out.

 

“Huh?” Ace asked.

 

He looked uncomfortable.  “Physiologically compatible.  We—that is to say, our species—are.  It’s the genetic level where you’ll run into roadblocks and chasms.”

 

“Oh,” Ace said, and it was her turn to be uncomfortable.  If Time Lords and the blue-haired inhabitants of this world were physiologically compatible, and he’d said that there was virtually no difference between these people and humans, then that meant . . . oh.  _Oh_.  “That . . . wasn’t something I knew.”

 

“You had no reason to,” he said.  They moved between two other couples, and brushed up close to one another as they threaded through.  Kiss-close again, and a certain light of panic had taken up residence in the Doctor’s eyes.  She hadn’t seen that look on him since they last faced off with the Daleks. 

 

The Doctor said, “You know, I think I’m . . . what would you say to a walk?  A bit of fresh air to clear the mind.  I think my mind needs clearing.”

 

She nodded.  She understood.  Hell, she felt the same.  This was exactly the reason she’d never tried this before, because she knew that as soon as she did, things would get awkward.  Differences which weren’t obvious before had become readily apparent now.

 

They broke through the throng of dancers and left through a side door which led out onto a small walkway next to a rocky beach. 

 

“Look,” she said, even as he started to speak.  They both fell silent for several confused seconds, and the Doctor made an abortive little gesture for her to go on.  “Look,” she said again, “it was a naff, crazy idea.  I don’t know what came over me, but it won’t happen again, I promise.”  She tried for a laugh.  “Who knows, maybe someone spiked my punch.  It did taste too good to be non-alcoholic.”

 

He gave her a tentative little smile.  All wasn’t forgotten, but he was willing to accept the plea of temporary insanity/unreality, even if neither of them actually believed it.  “Maybe they did,” he said. 

 

“Hey,” she said, changing the subject in a manner very similar to the Doctor’s own diversionary tactics, “didn’t you say that this planet was famous for its ice cream?”

 

He gave her a full, honest smile this time.  “You just ate!”

 

“I did,” she said.  “I had the fruit food group, the dairy food group, the chocolate food group, and the alcoholic food group.  Now, all I’m missing is the ice cream food group.”

 

“Wouldn’t that fall into dairy as well?”

 

“It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe.”

 

He tapped her nose, and there was only a hint of awkwardness in his eyes after he’d done it.  That cleared quickly, though, and he said, “Then ice cream you shall have.  Come on, I know just the place.”

 

They turned to leave the walkway.  Ace was wracking her brain, trying to come up with some new, safe, bland topic to dispel any residual tension.  That was when it happened.  There was a faint whoosh of air somewhere nearby, accompanied by a strange pricking sensation in her stomach. 

 

She looked down to see a feathered syringe sticking out of her gut.  She looked up at the Doctor and tried to think of an appropriate way of expressing her shock.  Her shock only increased when she saw that the dart had been fired from a pack of men wearing—of all things—togas.  Her knees buckled.  The Doctor caught her, eyes fixed on the toga patrol. 

 

As the world faded away, Ace wondered if the Doctor had ever managed a completely uneventful holiday in his life.


	3. Time All Unraveled

Ace came to with a blinding headache.  She sat up and put her head in her hands, worried her brains were going to leak out if she didn’t hold them in.  Even through her fingers the light was too much.  She squeezed her eyes closed.  She’d had her share of hangovers, but nothing to compete with this monstrosity.  For a moment, it seemed she and the Doctor might have made one hell of a night of it.  She muzzily wondered how long she’d been sleeping off the booze.  The pain she was in said ‘not nearly long enough’.

 

And then the night came back to her in crystal-clear focus: getting drugged by a pack of men wearing togas, the talk before the togas, the events leading up to the talk.  Precisely _what_ they’d almost got up to that night.  Something which had next to nothing to do with alcohol.  She groaned and fell back onto the bed.

 

She was, quite officially, the biggest idiot in the universe.

 

“You’re awake,” she heard someone say.  “Thank goodness.”

 

Into Ace’s field of vision leaned the Doctor.  He was back in his usual clothing, and she wondered how long she’d been out. 

 

“What happened?” she asked, the muzziness in her head coming out in her slurred speech.

 

“You were hit with a tranquilizer dart.”

 

“Shot by blokes wearing togas.”  She looked up at the Doctor.  “Why is it that we can’t have one decent holiday without getting attacked?  Did you do something in a previous life to piss off men in togas everywhere?”

 

He chuckled but didn’t answer.  It either meant that he _had_ done something to make men in togas universally hate him, or he just couldn’t remember.  Both were real possibilities.

 

She sat up again, one hand helping her ascent while the other hovered near her head, ready for brain-catching should it come to that.  Once she was sure her brains were safe, and once sitting was something her body could tolerate, Ace shifted gingerly.  Inch by nauseous inch, she eased her legs off the bed.  The Doctor held a cup of tea before her.  Her lips quirked in a soft smile as she accepted the steaming china cup.  Now, _this_ was the perfect Doctor reaction to a stressful situation. 

 

The tea was sweet and a bit salty.  She wondered if it had come from some sort of seaweed.  Maybe down there with that civilization that breathed methane.  Wherever the tea came from, she felt it start to work almost immediately.  Her head cleared, the pain behind her eyes decreased and then faded into a tolerable ache, and even the nausea subsided.  She sighed and started draining the stuff at a faster rate.

 

The Doctor watched her with a tiny smirk.  When the Doctor spoke again, his tone held a light note of teasing.  “They do make a lovely cup of tea on this planet, don’t they?”

 

She shot him a glare over the rim of her cup, but didn’t let his smugness stop her from downing the cup in record time.  “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled around her final sip.  The dregs washed into her mouth with the last of the tea, stronger and strangely sweeter than the rest of the tea had been.  They tasted almost like cardamom. 

 

She set the cup town on the bedside table and started to stand, intent on going to the bathroom and assessing the damage for herself.  She was halfway to standing when a sudden and unexpected tug dropped her back on the bed.  She looked down to see that her gown was rather inevitably twisted and rucked-up about her body, tight enough to halt her progress.  She felt a rush of concern that this incredible frock had taken such punishment on her watch, but her concern was quickly replaced by a rush of annoyance that the Doctor hadn't had the good sense to divest her of the gown before he'd put her to bed.  However, _that_ particular thought didn't sit well alongside those recent memories of dancing and temporary insanity, so she put it to one side.  Ace tugged at the dress, twisting it as best she could while sitting.  Once it was in slightly better order, she tried again to stand and had better luck.  She tottered to her feet.  The situation with the dress was complicated by the fact that her legs were less than steady.  In fact, they seemed to have no intention of holding her up for any extended period.  She considered her options, and decided on the less strenuous course of action to start with.  She pulled the gown again, straightening it out until it was comfortable.  When she’d finished that, she sat back down and felt a bit winded.  She was ludicrously relieved to see that the fabric had shaken loose its creases.  Presumably a dress that depicted the vortex was clever enough to be non-iron.

 

So how had the rest of her fared?  With the bathroom mirror too far to reach at present, she’d have to do this by feel.  She lifted a hand to her hair to find her updo long since toppled.  She supposed that getting shot and then manhandled into bed would do that to a _coiffure_.  Most of the hairpins had fallen out, so she'd need to search the bed later.  Lost hairpins always turned up where you least expected (or wanted) them.  Her hair hung in pathetic strands around her face.  She was not currently looking her best.

 

Ace organized her priorities.  Some group on this planet had it in for the Doctor.  Fine.  But, much as she wanted to discuss this, she wanted a good shower and a clean set of clothes just a little bit more.  She tested her legs again.  The little rest she’d taken seemed to have helped, at least with her sense of balance.  She stood up, her bare feet—at least the Doctor had bothered to remove her shoes—as firmly planted as she could get them and said, "I'm going to get cleaned up.  Try to think about who might want you dead while I'm gone."

 

He hummed his assent and watched her carefully, probably ready to catch if she should collapse again.  She walked on legs like jelly over to the corner of her room strewn with dirty clothes and the forlorn form of her rucksack.  Having got a firm handle on that, and resisting the urge to sway or fall over from the additional weight, she made her way to the bathroom, but paused midway and glanced over her shoulder.  The Doctor stood there, hands behind his back looking simultaneously prim and disheveled, as usual.  She placed a steadying hand on the dresser and said, “I’ll be fifteen minutes.  Try not to get into any more trouble.”

 

He arched his eyebrows in mock-worry.  "How am I to do that?  The men in togas may well know where we're staying."

 

"Right, and men in togas are notoriously inconspicuous.  Fading in to the background, slipping by hotel security unseen.  Like bloody ninjas, they are."

 

"They could sneak in pretending to be itinerant monks," the Doctor suggested.

 

“Oh, God!  Not that old chestnut.  Well, if they’re determined to milk the clichés then we’ll have to play them at their own game.  We knock two of them out, nick their robes and infiltrate.”

 

“Of course,” the Doctor said.  He frowned as though considering, though Ace knew he was just playing along.  Being silly.  He seemed as keen as she was to reassert their comfortable friendship after the shenanigans of last night.  “Do togas come in sizes?”

 

“I have no idea.”

 

“Because there will inevitably come a time when we’re unmasked and discovered and have to run for it.  I don’t want to be tripping over my hem.”

 

“Or some other bugger standing on it when you try to leg it.  Nothing spoils a good spot of recon quite like your toga falling off.”

 

His eyes twinkled.  “Are you speaking from practical experience, Miss McShane?”

 

She smirked at him, and her voice was lower than she intended when she said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”  He raised an eyebrow at her and she gave him a grin.  She didn’t mean for it to be flirtatious, but from his blink she supposed it might have come off that way.

 

Ace turned away with a feigned nonchalance, silently embarrassed by what she’d done, and continued on her way to the bathroom.  She heard the Doctor retreat through to his own room.  He didn’t shut the adjoining door.  That seemed ridiculously significant, if only for the two seconds it took to pull herself together.

 

After that, she went and shut the door for the both of them.  Better that way.  Easier on her, at least, because he wasn’t some bloke she’d picked up at the local pub.  She couldn’t just have a no-strings-attached fling with him and then leave when it got boring.  He was the Doctor.  The man she’d lived with for twelve years.  The man she’d fought beside, and just as often fought with.  The man who’d saved her life countless times and the man she’d saved.  The only person who’d been constantly at her side and on her side.

 

“Hell of a jam you’ve got yourself into, Dorothy,” she whispered to herself.

 

She’d just have to move on and get over this stupid bout of infatuation.  They had the toga patrol to deal with.  No time to be winsome and lovesick.  She pushed herself away from the door and went to the bathroom.  Once there, she stood before the mirror.  She _was_ a mess.  She reached up and pulled the remaining pins from her hair and then shook her head.  At least she started to shake her head, but then the dulled but very present pain caught up with her.  She stopped, hissing with discomfort, and managed not to slump to the floor.  Once she’d gathered herself she considered her reflection and decided to finger-comb out the rest of the knots in her hair.  It fell about her shoulders as she put it in some semblance of order.  Then she unclasped the necklace still around her neck and laid it on the vanity with the delicacy due such an ornament.

 

She unbuttoned the dress and let it pool around her feet.  Nothing of the Time Lady remained.  It was just Ace.  Plain old boring Ace.  She turned away from herself and retreated to the shower, turning the water temperature as high as she could stand. 

 

She scrubbed with a soap that smelled sweet and a little salty—a lot like the tea, if she thought about it—and it was just as invigorating as the drink had been.  She felt her strength return and the pain retreat even further.  Once she was scrubbed, she sighed and reached for the shampoo with hands that no longer shook.  It smelled spicy, and reminded her of how Manisha used to smell.  She felt an unexpected pang of nostalgia.  It wasn’t often that she’d think about her old life, but Manisha was one of those things she did miss.  One of those things she regretted.  It seemed like Ace regretted a lot of things these days.

 

She scrubbed at her hair hard. 

 

Once her scalp tingled she stood under the spray for a while, not really wanting to get back to reality.  The Doctor needed her on this one, though, especially if the toga patrol were more than just a bunch of drunken courtiers out for an evening on the town . . . with their tranq guns.  Yeah.  That was about as likely as her mum stopping by for a visit to the TARDIS. 

 

She turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower.  After drying herself with one of the thick towels provided, she inspected the drawers of the vanity.  All the necessary toiletries seemed to come with the room.  She used the brush first, expecting more than her usual battle against long, fine, snarl-prone hair.  The brush tingled as it swept through her tresses, moving along like it was flowing through water.  Not a single snarl.  Ace was surprised.  She was even more surprised to look up and see that everything in the brush’s wake was perfectly dry.  Advanced technology always cropped up in the strangest places. 

 

After she'd combed and dried her hair to a surprisingly soft straightness, she rummaged through her rucksack.  She picked out a pair of mauve culottes she'd found in 1974.  They'd been an unusual choice for her, but as it turned out they were fantastic for hot climates.  She pulled them on, then her combat boots and, after a moment’s consideration, a breathable, well fitted button-down made of some kind of thin fabric from Rynalda IV in the thirtieth century.  Their back-to-basics phase, the Doctor had called it.  She called it the most comfortable shirt she owned.  Last but not least she pulled out a cloth-covered scrunchee and swept her hair back into a loose plait.

 

She left the bathroom, but she didn’t see the Doctor.  He was probably still in his room reading or something.  Waiting for her to do her thing so they could go and investigate.  So much for her holiday by the sea. 

 

Or maybe he'd noticed the flirtation and decided to grab himself some breathing space.  Somewhere without insane human females who think they're being charming and seductive, but instead are simply being pathetic and more than a bit oppressive.  Maybe he’d left in a more permanent way.  In the way that meant she’d need to find a job and some friends on this planet, because she was here to stay.

 

Suddenly the idea that her out-of-control feelings were upsetting the Doctor was even harder to take than the awareness that they'd never be returned.

 

She talked herself out of the panic that threatened.  The Doctor wasn't the sort to take such things personally.  Even if he recognized a bit of what was going on with her—which was rather unlikely—he wouldn't up and leave her just because she'd done something stupid.  Lord only knew she'd done stupid things enough times to know.  She was over-analyzing.  He'd gone out for some perfectly ordinary reason, and therefore the sensible thing to do was to go and find him.

 

Because whatever else had changed in the last twelve hours, he still needed someone to watch his back.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

As a matter of fact, the Doctor _had_ taken a short walk, if not for the reasons Ace had feared.  In reality, he found that movement helped him think, and even his comfortable room was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic after staying in it for an entire night waiting for Ace to wake up.

 

The halls of the hotel weren’t a vast improvement, but at least they were new and pleasantly deserted.  It must be the off-season.

 

His mind whirled through a thousand possibilities, about their attackers and other things. They'd clearly not been prepared to deal with a Gallifreyan, given the lack of effect their darts had on his physiology.  What puzzled him was that when their ranged attack failed, they hadn't tried to bodily overwhelm him.  And there'd been five of them—that he'd managed to count—so they'd have been able to subdue him easily.  This was not the most physically intimidating body he'd ever had.

 

So why hadn't they finished the job?  He could only deduce that they hadn't known how vulnerable he really was.  There were probably as many wild stories about his people on this planet as on any other.  Well, most others.  There was the evidence of the stained glass window, of course.  It had been a long time since he’d been to a place where deification was an issue, and—contrary to what he’d told Ace—he _did_ worry about it.  There were few things so bothersome as being worshipped.  A few of his fellow renegades enjoyed it immensely, but he found it embarrassing.

 

Togas were an interesting mode of dress.  Not common on this world.  Perhaps some sort of religious order?  That would be in keeping with their attempted abduction of two Time Lords.  Were he and Ace the gods in question, though?  It could well be that they were merely facilitators to be used in some sort of ceremony to summon or nourish or just please this particular cult’s real gods.  It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. 

 

He did hate people trying to burn him at the stake.  It was even worse than being worshipped.

 

Then again, the togas could have no significance whatsoever.  They could be a fashion trend or disguises or any number of things.  What he could be certain of was that the—he supposed he should call them cultists until he was presented with a better term—were natives of the planet.  Their blue-tinged skin and shocks of blue hair were unmistakable. 

 

There was simply not enough data.  He could rattle through all the possibilities for days and he would be no closer to the solution than when he’d started.  The key was to provoke them again.  Could Ace capture one of the cultists if she managed to avoid the darts?  A direct questioning was most likely to yield the best results in such an unknown situation.

 

Amongst all these scattered musings, there was one thing the Doctor _wasn’t_ thinking about.  Ace’s behavior of late wasn’t his concern.  It was just things settling, that old and unnamed something in the air.  It would vanish as soon as they began moving again, so there was no reason to give it another thought.  Just as well, really, because he didn't like thinking about things he didn't understand.  Not that he lacked understanding here, of course; he'd just demonstrated that with his assessment.  But if, hypothetically, Ace's behavior had been prompted by something more than 'things settling', he knew he'd struggle to analyze it.  And he was a genius.  It was an entirely disagreeable sensation, not to be able to comprehend something.  Fortunately, in this instance, there was no need for concern.  Like he'd already decided.  The inner workings of his companion's emotions were—

 

But he wasn’t thinking about that.  He was thinking about cults and togas.  He was thinking about tea and cultures which breathed methane rising from black sands.  He was thinking about singing fish and oracles and potential danger.  Perhaps—

 

There was movement in the corner of his eye.  The Doctor turned to look down the perpendicular corridor he’d been passing, but there was no one there.  He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and then started to walk again, slower this time. 

 

What he’d said to Ace had only been half-joking.  The men in togas could well know where they were staying, and although security for the upper floors was decent, it wasn’t impervious.  They would have to keep on their toes.

 

He expanded his awareness beyond the visual.  The sounds of the hotel engulfed him: the dripping tap in the suite down the hall, the creak and whir from below as the cleaning robot went to work.  And then it was more than sound, more than sight.  He felt the hotel.  He felt the artificial intelligences below him, doing basic chores and manning the front desk, their thoughts orderly binary.

 

He felt Ace; she was looking for him.  She was still a fair way off, though, so she wasn’t the entity currently shadowing him.  He didn't pry into her thoughts beyond a basic check to be sure she was all right.  It was odd: he didn't usually refrain from examining the minds around him, but it seemed wrong with Ace, after everything they'd been through.  Or maybe it wasn't odd.  Maybe it was a simple defense mechanism.  If her mind was as disorganized as her quarters . . .

 

He felt for the closest presence.  He felt for—

 

Movement.  Sensation.  Cold.  A blinding cold passing through him.  For an instant, he knew that every molecule of his being reached a temperature of absolute zero.

 

And then it was gone, leaving the Doctor close to hyperventilation.  He turned, but again there was no one there.  Just empty corridor. 

 

“Who are you?” he asked.

 

Movement again, still in his periphery.  This time he remained still, trying to only look out of the corner of his eye.  It—whatever it was—was dark, but there were disembodied lights too.  That seemed familiar.  Had he encountered this—what was it?—before?  He reached out with his mind, trying to discern whether it was something he understood and had simply forgotten.  After nine-hundred-years worth of memories, things were bound to get lost.

 

And suddenly he heard Ace call, “Professor!  There you are!”

 

He spun, sick with the certainty that he had to get her out of the hall.  “Ace!” he shouted as she jogged towards him.  He started forwards and caught her arm, prepared to propel her bodily from the scene if need be.  They got only a few steps when her head whipped to the side.  She’d seen something.

 

He started to turn but never saw the next movement coming.  The unexpected cold numbed his arm to the point of uselessness.  His chest ached and he couldn’t breathe as his diaphragm seized.  It was behind him!  No, it was within him, existing in his space, and wherever it was, he felt that same freezing, entropic cold.

 

He tried to turn.  He had to see what it was.  Had to know . . . but instead of turning, he fell.  The floor—and it was a very nice marble floor—rushed up, but he didn’t feel the impact.  His mind was elsewhere.  Outside time without a TARDIS.  It wasn’t the Vortex, though.  After his second regeneration, he knew what that felt like.  No, this was almost the Void.  But it couldn’t be!  Please, Guardians, don’t let it be the Void . . .

 

And then his thoughts lost even that coherence.

 

_\-----Rassilon, where am I?—am I?—outside of everything—is impossible—true mathematics don’t lie—you can’t fool a temporal physicist, you know—is getting out of hand—too many games and puzzles—an Ace up my sleeve—where is she?—is she?—happened to her I’ll tear you apart with my own hands—older I get the less mercy I have—burn the world for her—was I ever altruistic?—ever that innocent?—that young?—foolish?—where’s it all gone?—lost in Time—I’m lost—lost for longer than I’ll acknowledge—innocents on Skaro when the sun went nova?—would have killed them if I thought it would save her—not killed—never—Doctor doesn’t kill—let them die—my lily pure hands—not so pure now—do we all become monsters?—is it just me?—just us?—justice?—believe in people not institutions—never institutions—never even a concept here?—if there’s no ever then its opposite cannot exist because it has no meaning—no meaning—never even told her anything important—she knew—she’ll never know—Ace up my sleeve—she won’t last long here—I won’t last long here—where am I?—am I?—outside of everything—is impossible—true mathematics don’t lie—you can’t fool a temporal physicist, you know—is getting out of hand—too many games and puzzles—an Ace up my sleeve—oh, my Ace . . .-----_

 

And then, as suddenly as he’d been thrown into that no-space, he was out.  The mental presence of the thing—or things, for that matter—which had attacked them was gone.  He felt the chill marble of the floor under his cheek and gasped in a lungful of air.  His mind ached, and his body temperature had fallen about five degrees from its comfortable sixty.  The air felt hot.  He shivered, trying to sit up or move in any way to reestablish circulation.

 

A stuttered breath next to him.  After three attempts, he mastered the use of his arms enough to roll onto his side.  Ace lay much as he had, her face ashen, her lips tinged blue, although that disturbing color faded as she drew another breath.  She breathed in too deeply and coughed, her body arching under the pain of coming back from the no-space.  If she’d been there.  If that wasn’t some sort of hallucination.  Reality was something of a slippery slope all of a sudden. 

 

“Easy,” he said.

 

She coughed again but managed to flop over on her own side to face him.  “Did you see it?” she asked, her eyes wide and haunted.

 

“What?”

 

“Everything.  The universe. Ours and every other.  A million Aces.  A million Doctors.”  She took a deep breath again and this time managed not to cough.  “A million variations on the theme of Ace and the Doctor.  Or Ace without the Doctor.  Or Ace who met the Doctor but was too stupid or bitchy or whatever to stick with him.”  She shot him an accusing look.  “Though you were a bit of a prick in that one too.  I think that whole universe was on the rag.”

 

He tried to laugh, coughed, and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Neither do I.”  She inched out a hand and he met her halfway, their fingers brushing.  Her eyes were dark, unreadable, faraway.  “Saw other things too.”

 

“Yes?” 

 

"A million ways I could die.  Every possible future, jumbled together.  Every past, too.  I don't know.  It was like . . . time, all unraveled . . . all the possibilities laid out."  Her eyes weren't focused.  Her hand seemed hot to him, though humans would seem hot if their body temperatures dropped twenty degrees. 

 

He didn’t like what she was saying.  It wasn’t a good place for a human mind to be.  “Nothing is decided,” he said, putting verbal and mental force behind the words.  “We define our own universe as we go.”

 

She nodded.  He watched for any warning signs.  If she had caught a glimpse into the full range of the multiverse, there were potential ramifications.  She looked up and met his gaze, permission enough for a small check.  He brushed surface thoughts, not reading them but checking for order and for anything broken or mis-shelved.  Everything seemed to be working, and the cheetah grumbled as he brushed it.  Even it had its own sort of stability and didn’t seem to have lost any of it.  She was very lucky.  He quietly took the images she’d seen, all the universes and more importantly all her deaths, and smothered them.  One by one, the memories faded until they seemed mere possibilities and not the traumatic experiences of a moment in eternity.  Ace would remember, but she wouldn’t be damaged. 

 

In past years he would have gone that step further and erased the memories altogether.  It was still a sore temptation to presume that he understood what she needed better than Ace did herself.  He’d made a promise years ago, though, to the both of them.  He’d promised he’d stop making her decisions for her, stop keeping her in the dark.  He’d had to.  She would have left him otherwise.  In an infinite universe of people who needed to be manipulated, either for their own good or for the good of others, there was one person who was off-limits.  Mostly.  He was trying very hard.

 

He opened his eyes.

 

“Everything all right upstairs?” she asked.

 

He nodded, feeling the smooth polish of the marble floor against his cheek.

 

“Professor,” she said.

 

“Ace?”  He worried she knew that his interference went beyond a simple damage check, and that even such a slight alteration, done without her consent, would upset her.

 

“I can’t move my legs.”

 

He laughed, and the sound burst the bubble of oppression and fear that had still surrounded them.  “Neither can I,” he said.

 

Ace moved her arm again, squirming to get it under her.  He watched as she managed some leverage and propped herself up halfway, then sat.  He did the same, feeling still-chilled muscles protest at the treatment. 

 

She slapped her leg, repeated the motion.  “Nothing,” she said.

 

“Give yourself a few moments,” he said.  “You can’t expect to just bounce back from an experience like that.”

 

She smirked at him.  “Well, that’s just not good enough.”

 

“You have the most amazingly short span of patience, even for a human.”

 

“I’m not going to live for nine-hundred years, Professor!  I can’t just sit around a hotel hallway with my legs frozen.”

 

“_I’m_ frozen, you just think you are.”

 

She reached out and touched the back of his hand.  Her skin was like a brand and he had to resist jerking away.  She meant well.  She settled her hand over his, and, after a few moments of trying to adjust to the sudden infusion of warmth, he felt himself start to absorb a bit of it: first at his fingertips and then spreading up his arm.  He tried his legs again.  Workable, but to a lesser extent than what he’d hoped for.  He managed to stand up.  He swayed for a few seconds, established a modicum of balance, and then reached down and pulled Ace up too.  She wobbled and then slewed against the wall.  Her legs folded and he tried to hold her up.  He failed and she pulled him down into a heap on the floor.

 

A lock of hair escaped her braid and fell in her eyes.  She blew it out of the way, an exasperated look on her face.

 

“That wasn’t precisely what I had in mind,” the Doctor conceded.

 

"No?  Thought it might be the master plan.  You know, convince the bad guys we're blotto.  Lull them into a false sense of security."  She shifted her legs experimentally, and he knew he had to move if she was to get up.  He put a hand against the wall for support and hauled himself to his feet once more.  He didn’t attempt to help Ace, who braced herself in a similar manner and stood with care.  She leaned against the wall.  The escaped strand of hair fell across her face again and she blew at it.  It fluttered and settled across her nose.  She reached up to move it, but started falling over and slapped her hand back against the wall behind her.  She looked cross, and the Doctor tucked it behind her ear for her.

 

“Thanks,” she muttered.

 

“It seems I’m bouncing back a bit faster than you.”

 

"Well, you're more used to this sort of thing than me.  You being a Time Lord and all," she said.  "Good job this didn't happen at the ball.  Would have been a dead giveaway that I was lying through my teeth."

 

The lights flickered.

 

They looked up and around.

 

“That was weird,” Ace said.

 

The Doctor agreed.  He didn’t trust the timing.  Too convenient.  Almost as though there was intelligence behind it.  As a scientist, the Doctor could appreciate coincidence.  He completely understood that coincidence was a universal fact.  However, he’d not yet met one he trusted.

 

He looked at Ace.  She was staring at the nearest light, apparently daring it to flicker again.

 

It was a place to start.

 

"Perhaps we should inspect the power room," he said.


	4. A Trip in Time

The Doctor had insisted they not take the lift, so Ace had followed him to the stairs and tried her best not to give voice to her complaints.  Taking the stairs _did_ make sense.  With power fluctuations like the one they’d just experienced, relying on anything electronic was a very bad idea.

 

But her legs hurt.  Badly.  Felt like she’d been electrocuted.  Without the being-dead part, of course.  She’d come close on a few occasions; she was no stranger to a few thousand stray volts.  Each time she swore it would be the last, but it never was.  Same as it’d never be the last time her legs ached like buggery.  Each step down caused them to nearly buckle.  She clung to the rail and gritted her teeth.  She was Ace, dammit.  She was better than this.

 

So she made her way behind a maddeningly steady-footed Doctor without a word of protest.  Down they went.  And down and down, past doorways to other floors illuminated under bare glow balls which continued to flicker erratically.  The lift had been so fast and efficient she hadn’t quite realized how bloody far they were from the ground floor.  Even with the view out her window she hadn’t realized.  With this sort of thing constantly happening to them, they should really book lower rooms.

 

At least her head was clearer.  She had felt better since the Doctor’d done whatever he had to her head (and he really shouldn’t think she hadn’t noticed), but the images were still there.  She hadn’t figured seeing her own dead body would creep her out as much as it had.  That, however, was comforting compared to the one thing she couldn’t help but notice was glaringly absent in every possible vision of her future: an intimate relationship.

 

Maybe she’d missed it.  Maybe, in that brief moment of omniscience, death and fighting and all the huge stuff had overwhelmed it.  She hadn’t seen them drinking tea either, but she was sure that wherever there was a Doctor, tea wouldn’t be far behind.  It was just frustrating not to have seen it.  She’d have figured there would be at least one reality in which the Doctor and Ace were, well, the Doctor and Ace.  Together.

 

Maybe all those universes were trying to tell her something.  Maybe they were whispering that this thing between the Doctor and her was crazy.  Maybe it was even what had broken up so many Doctors and Aces.  Maybe—

 

“You shouldn’t dwell on it,” the Doctor said.

 

Ace felt a moment of panic.  “Were you listening in on my thoughts?” she snapped, sounding angrier than she’d intended.

 

Her tone stopped him and he turned, his expression shuttered and almost hurt.  In past years, when she’d been younger and they hadn’t trusted one another as much as they did now, she would have suspected a con in that look.  Now she knew him well enough to discern between real and put-on.  This was genuine.  “I wouldn’t do that without your permission, and you know it,” he said.  The Doctor retraced his steps back up several stairs to stand closer to her.  “Your silence was, to borrow a phrase, speaking volumes.”

 

“Yeah, well, maybe my silence was speaking volumes about my aching legs.”

 

“It could have been.  But it wasn’t.”

 

She didn’t really have a comeback for that.

 

He sighed.  “The problem with catching a glimpse of the multiverse is that you suddenly think you’ve seen fate.  An image here, an image there, and your mind picks up on the patterns.  You end up thinking that if it’s happened in some realities—especially if it’s happened in many realities—then it’s bound to happen here.  But you have to understand that anything is possible.  That’s the _only_ real pattern the multiverse can show you.  No two realities are alike.  Our existence is dictated only by ourselves; by the choices we make.”  He gave her a quirk of a smile.  “So stop thinking about dying.  That’s a very long way off, and we’ve got work to do.”

 

Ace smiled, though probably not for the reasons he thought she did.  For a genius, he could be so wrong sometimes.  Then again, being misunderstood was infinitely preferable to being let down gently, so she wasn’t about to complain.

 

The Doctor turned and continued on his way though, she noted, at a slower pace than before.  Amazing.  She’d said that her legs ached as more of a quip than something she’d thought he would take into account, but he’d listened.

 

They continued down the stairs, past floor after floor, and Ace got the strangest feeling that they were the only guests at this hotel.  Where were the others?  Why wasn’t this stairwell packed with people wanting to know why their electricity was having a seizure?

 

She voiced her concerns to the Doctor, her voice ringing odd and flat in the stairwell. 

 

“Yes, I’d noticed that,” he said, continuing down.  “Maybe it’s just off-season.”

 

“Didn’t look much like off-season when we checked in,” Ace said.

 

“Hmm.  It’s possible we get a floor each.”

 

“Yeah, about as possible as free room-service.  But say that’s true.  We’ve gone past half a dozen floors now.”

 

The Doctor tossed a glance at her over his shoulder.  “They’re all heavy sleepers?”

 

Ace rolled her eyes.  “You don’t believe in coincidence,” she reminded him.  For some reason, the comment made him hesitate briefly before he continued on his way.

 

“No, I don’t, at that,” he acceded.  “You’re right.  It’s very curious.”  He veered abruptly, making for the doorway to the third floor.  The light above it was flickering wildly; even more so than the other floors they’d passed.  “Shall we see if anyone’s about?”

 

What he was really saying was that he was going to explore, and she was welcome to come along.  Like she had any choice in the matter.  She caught his arm before he opened the door and said, “Let me go first, all right?”

 

He frowned but didn’t object.  Ace palmed the access panel and the door slid open.  Beyond was a hallway identical to theirs except for a few variations in artwork.  It boasted the same champagne-colored marble, the same tannish-rose walls, the same intricate gold sconces.  Ace tried not to feel creeped out.

 

“You ever seen _The Shining_, Professor?” she asked.

 

“Can’t say that I have.  Why?”

 

“Just really wishing I hadn’t.”

 

“Ah.”  He rapped on the first door they came to.  No response.  He moved on to the next.

 

“What are we supposed to say if we find anyone?” Ace asked as she decided to make this quick by tackling her own side of the hall. 

 

She heard the Doctor’s voice behind her.  “The logical thing to ask in a situation like this: if they’re having power trouble.”

 

She rapped on her second door.  “Right,” she whispered.  While she was waiting for a reply she knew wasn’t going to come, she glanced down at her outfit.  “Then we can be mistaken for maintenance.  Love this job.”

 

She moved along to the next door, wondering if they could convince the other guests that it was casual-clothes-Friday.  Assuming this planet had Fridays.

 

She rapped.  The door slid open.  She stepped back, expecting to be greeted by some irate client.  Or maybe just a worried client.  Some form of client.  But there was no one there.  Just a room with the lights off and a door that opened when she knocked.  Nothing suspicious about that, oh no.  Whatever they were dealing with here, it didn’t have a very finely honed sense of subtlety. 

 

Of course, even knowing that this was probably a trap didn’t stop her going in.  She took a small step inside and winced as she was hit by the smell of something like overripe fruit.  Something rotting where it pressed the plastic bag.  Peaches or nectarines, maybe.  She fumbled at the wall for a light-switch.  She felt more than saw the Doctor by her side. 

 

Then the lights came on and the room was thrown into stark relief.  The smell was explained, and Ace really wished it had been fruit.  Instead, clinging to one another in the center of the room was a huddle of partially-mummified bodies.  She inhaled with a hiss, automatically gave the shock a few seconds to settle, and then breathed, “Holy _shit_.”  She stared at their sad remains clutching together like they were cold.  She swallowed hard and stepped closer, forcing herself to analyze rather than freak out.  There was no obvious cause of death.  “How’d they get here?” she asked, more to order the questions in her head than in anticipation of an answer.  “Wouldn’t someone know?  Management, or whatever?  _Do_ they know?”  She didn’t understand.  First the toga patrol, then the experience in the hall, and now this.  “How is it all connected?”

 

She turned to the Doctor, expecting him to know.  This was what he did.  He connected the dots.  But in this instance, there was no glitter of comprehension in his eyes, no smug grin.  His expression was clouded.  He didn’t understand what was going on any more than she did.  He might have some theories, but none in good enough shape to share yet.

 

Looked like it was down to good old-fashioned detective work, then.  She drew closer, trying to ignore the way the smell coated her tongue and the back of her throat like a paste.  She hated this part of the job.

 

She knelt next to the knot of people, inspecting them all.  The first thing she noticed was the grit of sand under her knees.  She wondered how it had got there, but was sidetracked from any further musings by the dead bodies.  They were humanoid, no doubt.  The dry hairs that still clung to their heads were mostly the bright hues of blue belonging to the locals, but there were one or two others mixed into this group.

 

“Looks like they’ve been freeze-dried,” she said.  “Like they got chucked out an air-lock without a space-suit.”

 

The Doctor was suddenly across from her, kneeling down and inspecting the group as well.  “Hmm . . .” he said.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“It does rather look like the effects of explosive decompression, doesn’t it?” he asked.

 

“But you’re not buying it,” she supplied, willing to string him along if it got his whole theory out.

 

“There are certain physiological symptoms missing.  The bursting of blood vessels, the cracking of expanding skin.  In fact, every symptom which would indicate exposure to vacuum.”  He leaned back on his heels.

 

Ace inspected the nearest corpse more closely.  “You’re right,” she muttered.  “It’s only the extreme cold showing up.  The mummification could just be time.”  She looked at him again, and he was troubled.  She could tell he had something on his mind, and it was her job to fish it out of him.  “Space without vacuum.  Got any ideas?”

 

His jaw was set.  “The Void.”

 

“Come again?”

 

“Imagine nothing.  Not outer space, because even in space there is form and function.  There are pockets of gas and life.  There’s energy in space, but in the Void?  Nothing.  Nothing for all eternity.  Everything within the Void would be at a constant temperature of absolute zero if it existed at all.  That’s the paradox, you see: you fall into the Void, and it’s as though that action never happened.  Because you were never in the Void.  You just cease to be.  Swallowed up by all that nothingness.”

 

Ace looked back at the corpses in dismay.  Touched by the Void?  “But if they were touched by something like that, shouldn’t what you just said happen?  Shouldn’t they get swallowed?”

 

He shook himself.  “Of course,” he said.  “You’re right.  There’s no possible way they could have come in contact with the Void and still exist here.  Clearly there’s—”  His breath stuttered out of him.  Ace looked to see him staring at the huddle of bodies, his eyes round and distant with horror.  She moved awkwardly on her knees to his side and followed his gaze.

 

And there they were.  Ace and the Doctor, laying a short distance from the others.  Something cold gripped Ace about the chest, and she didn’t know whether it was the horror of what she was looking at, or the hollow sense of inevitability that accompanied it.  It was more than ‘this is what’s going to happen’.  It was ‘this is what I’ve been expecting to see since the door slid open’. 

 

She heard a sound and realized she’d let out a whimper of fear.  The humiliation of making such a noise steadied her sufficiently to move past the shock.  She studied the remains of what looked like the Doctor, because looking at herself was too much for the time being.  He was in some of the worst condition of the lot.  His skull was stripped bare of anything but bone, and it was facing up as though he’d been staring at the ceiling when he died, lying on his side.  His jawbone gaped open, but that could be down to gravity as much as anything.  Didn’t mean he’d died screaming.

 

Oh God.  Don’t let him die screaming.  Anything but that.

 

But she was sure it was the Doctor because he was still wearing that ridiculous pullover.  It was slashed across the chest and speckled, though not soaked, with blood.  The blood was brown and old, and the colors of the yarn were faded.

 

Ace’s doppelganger was huddled against him, also on its side, clinging.  Her head was twisted the same way his was, looking up.  She well may have been following his gaze, but there was no way to tell.  Her eyes were just wrinkled bits of mummified tissue.  Her dried hair was loose and fell about her face.

 

Ace—the one who was alive and real and scared to her marrow—scrambled to her feet and backed away from the sight.  She was flashing back on those million ways she could have died.  She hadn’t seen this one.  This was new.  Like the Doctor had said before: anything was possible.  Even getting frozen and mummified in the middle of a lump of strangers in an otherwise empty hotel room.  She felt the slightest bit hysterical.

 

Then the Doctor was grabbing her shoulders and pulling her from the room.  They staggered to the door, and as they did, Ace looked back. 

 

There was nothing there.  The bodies were gone.

 

They stumbled out into the hallway and Ace rounded on the Doctor.  “What the hell is going on here, Professor?  I’m trying to put the pieces together, but it’s like a jigsaw where none of the bits even fit!”

 

He looked up at her, his expression shadowed.  “I can’t be sure, you understand—”

 

“I don’t care!”

 

“It was a trip in time.”

 

Ace exhaled.  “We take trips in time all the time!”

 

“Not like that, a _trip_.  Like a reactor trip or a stumble.  Time has stumbled.”

 

She took a deep breath.  She was no good if she was panicking.  She focused on the Doctor’s words.  “Like we were . . . what?  Looking at another moment in time?  Falling over it?”

 

“More like a momentary glimpse of something in either the past or the future.  You don’t exist in that time, but you get a flash of it.  And if it’s the future, you must remember that it’s only one possible path.”

 

She nodded, running her hands through her hair.  “Okay.  A possible future.  I can run with that.”

 

He was thinking now.  “This might not be the first time this has happened,” he said.

 

“What?”

 

He started back for the stairwell and she hurried to stay at his side.  “Before we went to the ball, I looked in the mirror and I was certain that I saw my next incarnation standing behind me.  I brushed it off, of course.  This sort of thing does tend to happen to a Time Lord more often than most other people, but . . .”

 

“But it could be connected.  Everything could: the toga guys, the time trips, what happened in the hallway upstairs.  It could all be happening for the same reason.”  She poked him in the arm.  “I know this look on you, Professor.  You’ve got an idea and you don’t like where it’s taking you.”

 

He waved a hand.  “Less of an idea and more of an impression.  There’s been a feeling in the air ever since the incident in the hallway, and I know I’ve felt it before.  I just can’t place it!”

 

The power took another nose-dive, and they were plunged into blackness.  Ace grabbed the Doctor’s arm to be sure he didn’t wander off or, worse yet, get dragged off while she couldn’t see.

 

The lights came back on, and they weren’t alone.


	5. Descent

Ace gasped as she stared into two wide-eyed faces.  One of them was familiar.  It took a moment before she recognized this young blue-haired local as the fawning upper-class twit from the ball, Kid Shakespeare himself.  He no longer sported the tights or the make-up, but his basic appearance and guileless green eyes were exactly as she remembered.  What she hadn’t recognized was the rather awkward stance and owlish blinking.  This probably wasn't the kind of context in which anyone would manage to exude confidence and composure, but Ace decided she liked him that way.  Taken out of the court setting, Kid Shakespeare might qualify as an actual person.

 

With him was a young woman, little more than a girl.  Like her escort, she wasn't exactly ugly.  Taller than Ace by a few inches, she had a willowy frame dressed to the nines and a long fall of straight powder blue hair half swept up into a coil.  Her heart-shaped face and big doe eyes made her the perfect sort of accessory for a bloke like this.  Good to see that he’d found someone better suited to him than Ace.

 

The blue-haired couple reacted with less alacrity than Ace had.  Even as she steadied her breathing, reassured that there was no immediate danger, they screamed in unison and fell back against the wall.  The woman clapped a hand to her chest, and Ace worried momentarily about heart attacks.  Assuming they had heart attacks on this planet.  Or hearts.

 

“Where did you come from?” Kid Shakespeare demanded.  “You weren’t here when the lights went out!”

 

Good question, thought Ace.  She should have seen them, or at least heard them before now.  Living for a decade with the heightened senses one gets from contracting a cheetah virus made her more than a little perceptive when it came to things like that.  But nothing.  The complete absence of sight, sound, or even smell until the lights came up.

 

Could the trip in time have lasted longer than she’d thought?  Could it have had some sort of after-effect that had kept both her and the Doctor slightly out of phase with reality?  Everything had snapped back into place when the lights went out.  Could the darkness have something to do with it?  Something with an affinity for the dark, maybe.  In the hallway when this all began, she’d seen some sort of darkness out of the corner of her eye. 

 

She just didn’t know.  This was much more the Doctor’s sort of puzzle than hers.  She turned to him to see if he had anything more concrete.

 

What he had was a blank, pleasant smile so different from the worry and the plotting of a moment before it was like it had never been there at all.  “I do apologize,” he said.  “We just came down the stairs to see if anyone was around who could tell us what’s been happening with the power.  It’s been flickering rather alarmingly up on our level.”

 

“Who . . ?” the woman managed.

 

“I’m the Doctor, and this is my friend, Ace.”

 

Kid Shakespeare’s eyes rested on her for a second and then widened in recognition.  “Oh, my lady, your presence is . . . that is to say . . . oh dash it all, anyway.  You’re the pair from the ball, aren’t you?  Small world!”

 

Ace tried not to sigh.  It would have been easier if he hadn't recognized her, but there it was.  At least he was no longer on the pull; fawning over pretend-Time-Ladies while escorting a doe-eyed female was pretty bad form by any civilization's standards.  Kid Shakespeare was eyeing her up, although whether his appreciation was romantic or simply friendly was anyone’s guess.  His companion definitely thought that it was romantic, and had apparently decided that taking a short break from her freak-out session to shoot Ace the evils was the thing to do.

 

She couldn't believe her bad luck, and her muttered "Yeah" was less than enthusiastic.  As if being tranquilized by men in togas, glimpsing her own possible deaths, and seeing her mummified remains wasn't _enough_ to deal with, she was now being maneuvered slap bang into the middle of a soap opera!  She had to nip this in the bud.  She made her expression as cold and disdainful as she could and she thought 'not in your wildest dreams' hard at Kid Shakespeare.

 

Who didn't miss her annoyance.  She saw a faint blush rise to his cheeks.  “Terribly sorry if I said anything untoward to you last night.  I had one or two drinks and the whole thing was a bit of a blur.  Meeka here had to rescue me from drowning in the punchbowl after you left.”

 

Ace was grudgingly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  “You were a bit of a cretin,” she said, half to see his reaction.  He ducked his head and looked heartily embarrassed, which prompted her to conclude, “I’ve met worse.”

 

He looked up and gave her a slight, pained smile.

 

“Have you been having power problems on this floor?” the Doctor asked, polite enough to seem a bit rude.

 

The man seemed to miss the rudeness, and he returned to the subject at hand without missing a beat.  “Oh, yes!  The power’s been playing merry hell all day, I’m afraid.  I didn’t really mind until it got so bally dark outside.  I supposed it must be overcast or some such, but Meeka says there’s not a cloud in the sky.  Who knows, in this sort of climate?” he said.  “We tried ringing the front desk, but that service robot isn’t answering, so I thought we should pop down and check for ourselves.  We’d just stepped out when the power went down again.”  He gave Ace a toothy grin.  “We must have startled you as much as you did us.”  He held out a hand.  “I’m Terrin, by the way.  Third Sub-Mitrae of the Further Mountains.  Up north, don’t you know.  Here on holiday.”

 

Ace had no idea what any of that meant, but guessed that Kid Shakespeare, or Terrin, must be some sort of minor nobility.  Not exactly the ideal sort of companion, but he seemed a sound enough bloke now that he was sober.  She shook his hand with a smile of her own and said, “Good to meet you, Terrin.”

 

He let go of her hand quickly, and she wondered if she was intimidating him or if he was simply worried about offending her again.  “I say,” he said, “you could come with us.  Strength in numbers and all that.”

 

The Doctor stepped in, saying, “We were actually on our way to the power room.  My friend here knows a thing or two about electrical engineering and we thought she might be able to lend a hand.”

 

The man looked at her with interest.  She couldn’t call it romantic, really.  More like surprise and fascination.  Maybe he’d not met many girls with technical aptitude.  If most of his lady friends were anything like the shrinking violet against the wall it was small wonder.  “That’s rather useful,” he said.

 

“Helped me out a time or two,” she said and left it at that.

 

“Do you mind if we tag along?” he asked.  “I don’t mean to impose, but all this business with the power’s got Meeka here downright upset.  Even I’m feeling a bit peaked.”

 

The Doctor shot Ace a glance and she shrugged.  If they left these two here, who knew what could happen to them?  She tried not to think too hard about the shape of Meeka's hairdo, the fall and twist of it in the pile of bodies they'd seen.  She tried not to think that by teaming up with this couple, they were setting themselves up for that death. 

 

“We wouldn’t mind the company at all,” the Doctor said.

 

“Yeah,” Ace said a second later.  “Not at all.  Which room are you two in?”

 

The man gestured back towards the door they’d just left.  The room with the bodies.  She shot another look at the Doctor, but he had his all-is-right-with-the-worlds mask on and it wasn’t budging, not even for a revelation like that.  The message was clear: room or no room, trip in time or not, they couldn’t just strand this hapless pair in a hotel gone mad. 

 

She lifted her chin and said, “Come on then.”

 

Terrin trotted closer and realized that Meeka wasn’t following.  He turned back, and for perhaps the first time he recognized his companion’s naked terror.  If Meeka pressed herself into the wall any harder, she was likely to dent it.  Terrin blinked, hurried back and took her by the hand, leading her to Ace’s side.  “Come along, Meeka,” he said.  “That’s a girl.”

 

Ace had the feeling her patience with Meeka was going to run out very fast.

 

The Doctor led the way, but Ace was right behind him.  She hated it when he led from the front; he wasn't built for it.  He planned and she carried out, and anything else set her on edge.  Maybe she simply hated seeing him in danger.  Funny, that, since she was almost certain he thought the exact same thing about her.

 

They entered the stairwell again and the Doctor started immediately for the next flight down.  She caught his shoulder to stop him.  He frowned at her, but this was her part of their job, and his objections were neither new nor relevant.  She stepped in front of him and scanned the area.  She knew her irises had shaded to gold, but it was a contained thing.  After so long managing it, she knew how to control the virus, to make it work for her.  As her eyesight sharpened and the pools of darkness dropped away, she was absurdly grateful for it.

 

There was no movement. Nothing but them.  Five heartbeats, the familiar smells of herself and her Doctor, as well as the slightly salty smell of their two new arrivals. 

 

Ace’s eyesight faded back to normal and she turned to the Doctor.  “All clear,” she said.

 

His expression was something between frustration and amusement.  “I’d thought as much,” he said.

 

As if that was worth anything.  For an intellectual giant, he was often painfully unaware of the potential dangers presented to his person.  Which meant that _her_ person was also frequently in the line of fire.  “Last time you thought that, we ended up running from a pack of giant, lightning-breathing stick insects.”  She noticed Terrin and Meeka giving her somewhat shocked looks and she said, “Totally different planet.  Don’t worry.”

 

“That was an uncommon occurrence,” the Doctor said with as much dignity as he could muster.  “I’ll have you know that I’m well aware of my surroundings.”  His eyes flickered past her and up the stairs.  Ace had to resist the urge to turn just to see what it was he was looking at.  When he spoke again, however, his tone was devoid of affront.  It was devoid of everything.  “More aware than you know,” he whispered.

 

“I’m frightened,” Meeka whispered.  It was probably a comment just meant for Terrin, but her voice carried in the stillness of the stairwell.  It was enough to snap the Doctor out of whatever dark place he’d got himself into.  He gave Meeka a reassuring smile and said, “No need to worry.  The ground floor is only three below us.”

 

“Yeah,” Ace said.  “Probably best if you two headed out the front door once we get there.  No telling what we’ll find in the basement.”

 

“Maybe—” Meeka started but was interrupted by Terrin.

 

He said, “Can’t, I’m afraid.  I’d feel awfully gauche leaving the two of you to fend for yourselves after you went to the trouble of taking us on.  Need to see this through.”

 

Ace rolled her eyes.  “Look,” she said.  “I know you think you’re being all chivalrous, but you being around is going to be a problem.”

 

“I say!” Terrin started, but Ace cut in.

 

“I’m the one who looks after the Doctor, and if you come along, it means I need to look after the both of you, too.  You’ll be tripling my workload, mush.”

 

“I don’t need looking after!” Terrin spluttered.

 

“_Meeka_ rescued you from a punchbowl.  Told me that yourself.”

 

“I was a touch inebriated!  I’m fit as a fiddle now, so I’ll thank you to stop treating me like a child.  Third Sub-Mitrae here, you know.” 

 

Ace glared, but Terrin showed that he had more spine than brains and didn’t budge.  Ace growled, realizing that the only way of moving him out the front door would be by propelling him bodily in that direction. 

 

Which was something she was both capable of and willing to do as soon as they hit ground level.  Terrin would be leaving whether he liked it or not, but it was probably just as well that he didn’t know that until he was on his way out the door.  Without any further word, she started forward, feet placed on each step with a quiet deliberation.  As they passed each doorway onto each floor she kept her ears open for anyone else.  There was nothing. 

 

They reached the ground floor without incident.  She made the group pause and turned to Terrin, about to order him into the hotel foyer and out to safety, taking Meeka along with him.  Ace was thinking about the most colorful way to describe how this was not a choice, selecting each word with relish, when she heard a sound.  Everyone else must have heard it as well, because even their breathing fell silent as they listened.

 

There was something shuffling behind the door, footsteps dragging out of rhythm.  It was coming closer.  The hairs on the back of Ace’s neck rose in response as the footsteps fell silent right outside.  They all strained to hear anything: breathing, words, even the rustle of cloth, but there was nothing.  Suddenly, they all jumped at the sound of quiet, rhythmic knocking.  Someone was rapping on the door.

 

Terrin reached for the handle.  The Doctor caught his arm, even as Ace formulated a sharp rebuke.  Really, who would actually open the door upon hearing something like that?  She didn’t need to say anything, though.  The Doctor’s expression was forbidding enough.  Terrin even gasped a little at the ferocity of the grip on his arm. 

 

“That’s not for us,” the Doctor said and released Terrin’s arm as quickly as he’d grabbed it.

 

Terrin’s face creased in worry, but he didn’t argue the point.  Perhaps the Doctor’s gravity was catching.  Ace certainly felt it.  She also felt that, with this exit route no longer an option, they now had no choice but to take Terrin and Meeka to the basement with them. 

 

They continued down without opening the door.  The slow, steady knocking followed them.

 

Below the ground floor, the state of upkeep in the stairwell took a nosedive.  The paint was flaking or even absent in large patches, and the concrete of the stairs and walls was cracked.  There was a general sense of dampness in the air, as well as an unidentified smell of something old and too long undisturbed.

 

“I don’t like it here,” Meeka whispered.

 

“A lick of paint here and there, and this place could be . . .” but even Terrin couldn’t complete the sentence.  He knew as well as anyone else that it wasn’t the paint Meeka was talking about. 

 

The Doctor’s hand came to rest in the center of Ace’s back and he drew level with her, eyes flickering to and fro as they continued down to the bottom of the stairs.  Odd, Ace thought, how a little adrenaline had made her legs hurt less.  She hadn't even thought about the aching in her muscles, not since the door to Terrin’s room had slid open and offered her its vision of a nightmarish future.  Or maybe it wasn't adrenaline.  Maybe her legs had finally finished thawing.

 

The door to the basement level was dented from years of use, and as Ace shouldered it open the hinges gave out a loud shriek.  Meeka and Terrin jumped at the noise and the Doctor gave her a quick look.  Ace gritted her teeth.  There went the element of surprise.

 

They moved into the dimly lit interior of the basement with care.  Instead of being divided by walls, it seemed broken up by shelves and support columns, giving a patchy view of the entire area.  Ace shook her head.  There was no way she could track all the movement in a place like this.

 

Still, the generator needed a once-over.  If they were lucky, there would at least be a service robot there they could question.  After that she supposed they’d have to find an alternative way out of the building.  Perhaps the kitchens or some other service exit.  They could get Terrin and Meeka to relative safety and figure out if these temporal hiccups were localized to the hotel or whether they were planet-wide.

 

Again she went first.  Again each step was carefully placed.  She'd gone no more than ten feet when she sensed movement out of the corner of her eye.  She inhaled with a hiss and turned to face the source of that movement, hand raised to stop the group.  Even with her heightened senses she couldn't identify what it was she'd seen.  She put it down to a trick of the light and continued.

 

It happened again.  Just beyond her field of vision, a shadow fluttered.  She felt her lips curl into a snarl as her body readied itself to mount a defense.  But again, when she looked, there was nothing there.  Just a dust-filled shaft of light playing between boxes and other assorted sundries stacked on the shelves.  Could have been a cloud passing, but somehow she doubted it.

 

Beside her she heard the Doctor whisper, "Ace?"  She shook her head and resumed her steps.  His hand hadn't left her back, and a gentle pressure steered her to the right.  “This way, I think,” he said.  She believed him. 

 

The further they ventured into the basement, the more problematic reality became.  At first it was little things: strange sounds, the occasional inexplicable light or flicker of movement where there was none.  The Doctor’s hand started to shiver against her spine, and Ace worried about him.  He was hypersensitive to psychic phenomena, so being in a place like this was probably playing havoc with his equilibrium. 

 

The threatening suggestion of movement out the corner of her eye became a constant barrage of rustling shapes and predatory shadows.  They were never there when she looked directly, but maybe she had the reality of this situation upside down.  Maybe her direct vision was lying and the truth was to be found in those half-seen glimpses.  It was hard not to start considering such a possibility as reality shivered all around her.

 

Then there was something new: a smell.  Ace wrinkled her nose and forced herself to analyze.  Not unpleasant, certainly.  It was . . . it was a flower garden.  She could smell flowers, roses perhaps, and . . . no.  No, the soil was strongest.  Wet soil smelling of worms and rain.  That was . . . not quite right either, because the worms were stronger than the rain, and the smell of them was mixed with something else.  Something sickly and cloying.  Rotted flesh.  Something buried under that worm-infested, wet ground, but not nearly far enough down.  Something that could come back up at any moment. 

 

What the hell was going on?  She kept moving, telling herself not to trust the smells any more than she trusted the shadows.  As if in castigation, the odor she sensed changed again.  Strong as before, but entirely different.  The scent of pines.  A whole forest of evergreens.  Then the smell faded, dulling from the sharp tang of resin to something older.  At first she thought old, dry wood, but that wasn’t right.  It was old bones, dry and cracked.  There was nothing quite like the smell of bones in the air.  Nothing quite like the feel of bone dust clinging, leeching moisture from the skin.  Ace’s hands felt stiff and she didn’t look down for fear of seeing the telltale gray powder.

 

Midway across the basement, Meeka started to cry softly.  Ace couldn't find it in herself to sneer; she all but sympathized.  Could things get any worse?  Threatening shadows, awful, shifting smells . . . she clenched her molars and concentrated on walking.  Eyes front, shoulders back.

 

Then she stopped with a gasp.  Up ahead, shrouded in the dimness of the cluttered room, she saw another group of people who didn't disappear when she looked their way.  Ace frowned and stared.  Recognition was not a sudden thing, but rather it crept up on her until she realized that she was looking at the backs of Terrin and Meeka.  She looked behind her, and they were there, as well.  Meeka’s eyes were closed and her face was pressed into Terrin’s shoulder.  He held her up and guided her as they continued to walk.  She turned back around and saw that the other Terrin and Meeka were doing the same.

 

Was this an hallucination?  Or another time-trip?  She lost sight of the group as they turned around a corner.  She thought she caught glimpses of them through the shelves, but they were gaunt.  There was something wrong about them.  Shuffling . . . footsteps dragging out of rhythm.  Ace tore her gaze away.

 

The Doctor guided her around a corner to their left.  They both stopped short, staring at the row of bodies hung up on meat hooks that dangled in their path.  The little light there was in the basement reflected cruelly from the metal, and there was enough form to the carcasses that Ace could see the anguish with which they'd met their violent end.  The fact that Meeka hadn't screamed meant that the girl hadn’t yet raised her head from where it was planted on Terrin’s shoulder.  Sensible choice.

 

The Doctor's hand slid around her back and tucked against her side, holding her steady.  Ace took a breath and felt his odd sphere of calm working on her.  She blinked and the bodies were gone. 

 

When they started walking again, his arm stayed around her waist, and her hand slipped up to press between his shoulder blades.  At long last, she saw the metal grating of the generator cage.  If she’d had any less cool than she did, she would be heaving a sigh of relief.  As it was, the tension in her shoulders relaxed a little.  This was the home stretch.

 

There were no robots there, and the door was padlocked.  This was fine with her. With one violent kick she was able to work out some of the tension in her system.  She struck the door beside its bolt, and though the padlock held, the bolt itself tore free of its rivets and the door swung open to slam against the inside of the cage.  The whole structure around the generator shivered, or at least she thought it did.  Maybe it was just another hallucination.

 

Once inside, Ace looked back at her companions.  The Doctor had come through the ordeal more or less intact, if horribly pale.  Terrin was also a particularly pasty color, and held Meeka—who, as it turned out, had avoided the worst of the visions by fainting somewhere along the way—in his arms.

 

“You know anything about the way one of these should look?” she asked.

 

“I . . . I think we had something like it at my father’s villa.  I can probably remember—”  He hefted Meeka with some confusion.  “I just don’t know . . .”

 

The Doctor took Terrin by the elbow and led him through the broken cage door to a section of floor that was out of the way.  "Set her down here and I'll look after her," he said.  "You go and help Ace."

 

Terrin did as he was told, moving as though he were on autopilot.  Ace wondered if he’d be any help at all in this condition.  Despite her worries, Terrin seemed determined not to let her down.  He moved right up to the generator and scrutinized it.  She supposed a knowledge of the basic look was better than nothing.

 

"I say," Terrin remarked after a moment or two, "aren't you supposed to know about this sort of thing?"

 

Ace shuffled a little.  She'd hoped Terrin had forgotten the Doctor's words upstairs.  "I do.  But configurations change according to their planet of origin.  So we can either spend an hour down here while I study your people's generator design, or you can give me a head start.  What do you reckon?"

 

"Fair do's," he agreed.  Then he suddenly pointed and said, "I don't think that’s supposed to be there.”  He was talking about a bundle of softly glowing cables running from what Ace surmised to be the power output to a hole into the wall. 

 

“You sure?” she asked.

 

“Reminds me a bit of the stone my father’s villa’s made out of.  I’m bally well sure I’d remember cables that matched the house.”

 

Ace shrugged.  It was good enough for her, and more importantly, it looked like someone might have sabotaged the generator on purpose.  For the first time since the hotel had gone mad, Ace felt she could do something proactive.  She reached out and hovered her hand near the cables, feeling for any sort of electrical output.  She didn’t want to fry herself in this attempt.

 

She was about to take hold of the cables and yank when Terrin shouted.  Ace turned and froze.  All around the cage there were figures standing there and staring at them.  They were darkness shaped like people, shadows given form.  Some of them had strange lights emanating from them; others had the same lights hovering nearby.  They filled her with a fundamental sense of dread, though she couldn't give a reason for it.  She'd certainly seen more horrific things than people made of nothing but black.  But they were _wrong_.  Shouldn’t be here.  Not staring at her.  Not that many.

 

The Doctor was kneeling next to Meeka, frozen.  He stared into their ranks with wide, haunted eyes, and Ace realized that he knew these things.  That they may well be what he had been suspecting and fearing all along. 

 

In unison, all the figures raised their arms toward the group in the generator cage.  They stepped towards them, reaching.  Terrin ran over, scooped up Meeka, and backpedaled as the first of the figures passed through the cage.  Its light turned not on them, but on the Doctor.  It was coming for him.

 

Meeka woke up and started screaming.  Terrin was shaking and probably trying not to scream himself, but it was the Doctor’s hoarse shout that brought Ace back to her senses.  “Pull the cables out!  Now!”

 

Ace whirled and saw a figure coming out of the generator at her.  She dodged it, but its hand passed through her arm, and everything up to her shoulder felt as though it had been held under ice water for five minutes.  This was what they had encountered in their hallway!  These things had been here all along!

 

Terrin gave in and started to scream.

 

Ace grabbed the bundle of cables with her good hand and felt the freezing enter her back.  A light behind her threw her silhouette on the generator in stark illumination, making her look like one of the figures.  Her lungs seized up at the cold, and Ace wrenched the cables as hard as she could, throwing her full weight into it.  They held for a horrible moment, and Ace was convinced that her efforts wouldn’t be enough.  Everyone would die, and it would be her fault. 

 

And then the cables jerked free.  Ace collapsed, the cords slipping from her numbing fingers, and as she fell she passed through the figure.  The cold seized her completely, stealing her air.  She lay there and looked up at it as the shape above her winked out.  And then so did she.


	6. The Shadowmen

Ace drifted into consciousness.  She couldn’t open her eyes or move any of her limbs.  She was a heavy, dead weight and she was being carried somewhere.  She felt arms holding her up and she felt the nap of suiting and the curve of a familiar shoulder under her cheek.

 

How was it, she wondered, that the Doctor was—for a man in many ways so distant—the most comfortable person in Ace’s universe? 

 

Like the tide, she washed back out into the blackness.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

She came back several more times, each fleeting and jumbled.  Sometimes she saw the streets of the city, bathed in the bioluminescent glow of the streetlamps and the greenish ambient light of the moon.  The moon?  Could that be right?  She supposed it must be.  There were people on the streets, huddled in clusters.  They looked afraid.  Maybe they were afraid because it was nighttime in the middle of the day.

 

Other moments were more surreal.  Ace was left with less of an understanding and more of an impression of what was going on around her.  Sometimes it was the simple awareness that there was something off about the scene she surveyed.  At other times she saw what could only be more hallucinations: a giant egg blocking out all other sights, trees uprooting and slowly turning upside down, the buildings in photo-negative or looking like tiny cardboard imitations of buildings.  And faces, faces hiding around every corner, unknown yet strangely familiar, and all of them were laughing softly.

 

She couldn’t seem to stay awake.  Her eyelids were lead weights and she couldn’t fight the lethargy which seeped into every limb.  She didn’t make a habit of fainting in the Doctor’s arms, but this time she didn’t have much choice.  And he wasn’t about to drop her . . .

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

“I think she’s coming round!  Ace, m’dear, can you hear me?”

 

“She looks awfully pale.”

 

“Stand back, both of you.”

 

“But—”

 

“If you want to be useful, go and fetch some tea.  I’m sure we could all use a cup.”

 

“I—”

 

“Do as I say.”

 

“Yes, Doctor.”

 

As the footsteps of two people receded and Ace heard the creak of a door swinging open then closed, she was aware—clearly aware—for the first time in what seemed ages.  Her lucidity was a trickle that became a waterfall, and she gasped out loud as she discovered that every inch of her skin felt like it was being jabbed with tiny pins.  A scream itched at the back of her throat, and she had to clamp her jaw down hard to rein it in.  As it was, a high whistle of air still escaped her control and rushed out on an exhale.  She opened her eyes, blinking fast against the light of the unfamiliar room in which she found herself.

 

The Doctor hovered over her, concern writ large on his face.  “Ace?” he asked.  “Ace, are you all right?  Where are you hurting?”

 

She would have laughed, but she was conserving her breath, so she just wheezed, “Where am I not?”  One of his hands slipped behind her head while his other arm came beneath her shoulders.  With his help, Ace sat up on what felt like a wooden floor.  Or an absolutely huge table, but a floor was far more likely.  Every point of pressure amplified the feeling of pins, but somehow the parts not being touched were worse.  The pain was diffuse there, amorphous.  At least with pressure, the pain intensified to something she could identify and articulate.

 

She decided to, as it were, grasp the nettle. She slipped her arms around the Doctor and, before he could react, pulled him close.  The pain flared and then started to subside as it finally became powerful and specific enough for her body’s natural defenses to do something about.  While she rode it out, the Doctor held her gingerly.

 

“You know,” she said, “I’m getting really tired of being knocked out.  It’s someone else’s turn.”

 

The Doctor chuckled, but didn’t say anything.

 

“Where are we?” she asked, looking over his shoulder around at a rough-hewn little hut.

 

His voice held something vaguely approaching embarrassment.  “A fisherman’s shack.”  She blinked up at him and he gave her a tight smile.  Realization dawned and she eased back a bit in her enthusiastic embrace.  The Doctor relaxed visibly.

 

She tried to keep utterly cool about the whole thing.  “One of those with hooks and nets and all that?”

 

“That would be the place, yes.”

 

Ace looked around.  Indeed, there were hooks and nets and the occasional floatation device along the walls, as well as some snorkel gear on a set of shelves and an untidy pile of fishing line in the corner.  Yeah.  Fisherman’s shack.

 

“Why are we in a fisherman’s shack?” she asked.

 

“Well, the cabana was overcrowded.  Needs must.”

 

“Why would people go to an open-air cabana in a dangerous situation?” she asked.

 

“Company?  It’s not my area of expertise.  But have noticed that people usually want to face danger with others around them.  They’ll always head for the nearest public gathering place. And if that place also contains copious amounts of available alcohol, so much the better.”

 

Ace sighed.  “Right.  ‘Oh dear, the world appears to be ending, time to get rat-arsed.’  Gotcha.”

 

His laugher was shaky and he said, “That’s about the size of it, yes.”

 

His arms tightened around her, and the pain became acute.  She stiffened and he immediately drew back a few inches, although he didn’t let her go completely.  “What’s wrong?” he asked, all business.  His words stirred her hair.

 

“Pins and needles all over.”

 

“That’ll be the circulation returning.”

 

“My circulation got cut off?  Those things can do that?”

 

The Doctor’s tone was dark when he said, “They can do much worse than that.”

 

Ace pulled back.  The tingling was still there but at a much more tolerable level.  “You’ve met them before, haven’t you?  You’ve suspected this all day.”

 

“I was going to tell you, I just—”

 

“Got busy.  I know.  Tell me now.”

 

His eyes were large and concerned.  She knew that look; had seen it a thousand times.  Manipulative bastard.  “Are you quite sure you’re—” he started.

 

She cut him off before he could dig himself any deeper.  “I’m fine.  Stop stalling.”

 

“Shadowmen,” he said.

 

If she hadn’t been able to keep up, it would have seemed a _non sequitur_.  And even keeping pace with his mental gymnastics, she needed a little clarification.  “What?”

 

His eyes were stormy gray, an ocean in the middle of a tempest.  “They’re called Shadowmen.  Every planet in the known universe has people who’ve seen them, even Earth.  Have you ever heard of sleep paralysis?”

 

Ace shook her head.

 

“It’s a medical condition, more or less unexplained.  For some reason the mind wakes up, but the body doesn’t.  In some cases the person experiencing it can’t even open their eyes.  They lie there panicking until they fall back asleep.  They’re the lucky ones.”

 

“Don’t sound very lucky.”

 

“Believe me when I say they are.  You see, those who manage to open their eyes will see what’s always there, invisible.”

 

“The Shadowmen.”  She collected her thoughts and asked, “What are they doing?  The Shadowmen, I mean.”

 

“Often they’re standing about the unfortunate person’s bed, staring down at them.  Other times, they’ll be somewhere else in the room, standing in a closet or emerging from a drawer.”

 

“Creepy.  Seriously creepy.”

 

He leaned forward and his voice dropped.  “You don’t know the half of it.  Gallifreyans have been studying these beings for years, trying to determine what they are and what they want.  The presiding theory is that they’re scientists from some parallel reality who’ve managed to punch halfway through into ours.  They observe us.  Billions of them just . . . watching.  Standing about with those inexplicable lights and watching.”

 

Ace felt a chill slide down her spine.  Now that he’d explained, she remembered stories.  Friends who hadn’t said much, but who had talked about dreams with silhouette people watching them.  She _knew_ people who’d seen these Shadowmen and she’d never paid it any mind.  Nightmares were nightmares.  For all her other-worldly experiences, she’d never imagined otherwise.

 

“You’re talking about theories,” she said.  “You’ve not been able to talk to them, have you?”

 

Her question was answered with a violent shake of his head.  “We can’t.  They don’t communicate, or if they do, it’s in no recognizable system.  Sound, of course, can’t be expected to travel between universes, but all attempts at visual communication—sign language, basic miming, that sort of thing—have failed to produce any noticeable reaction.  Their movements tell us nothing except that they watch us.”

 

“One problem,” Ace said.  “We weren’t asleep when they showed up in the hotel.  And what about everything else?  How does that fit in?”

 

The Doctor growled, “I’ve a nasty suspicion that someone is trying to punch through to the Shadowmen’s reality from this universe.”

 

“They’re what?  Why?”

 

He shrugged.  “Curiosity?  Boredom?  Who knows?  The point is, this has to be stopped before it can go any further.  Minor temporal incursions, ripples in the fabric of reality, all of this can be dealt with, but if the Shadowmen start to cross over to our reality _en masse_ . . .”

 

“Let me guess: the end of the world as we know it.”

 

“The end of this world would only be the beginning.  It wouldn’t stop here.”  The Doctor leaped to his feet and started to pace.  “There was a planet called Mirocongia inhabited by an ancient technological race.  The Mirocongi and the Time Lords were on good terms; we traded scientific findings and such.  One day, the High Council received word of a Mirocongi experiment.  They were going to make contact with the Shadowmen.  We waited to hear more, but nothing came.”

 

“What happened?” Ace asked, even though she knew she didn’t want to hear it.

 

The Doctor was lost in his own recollections.  “I had just graduated from the Academy.  A friend of mine was dispatched to Mirocongia to investigate, and he took me with him.  It was my first time off Gallifrey.”  He drew a deep, shuddering breath.  He knelt before her again.  “We tried to materialize in their capital, but his TARDIS refused.  I’d never heard of a TARDIS ignoring a command like that.  Instead we materialized on the moon—there was an atmosphere, minimal vegetation, so we could at least leave the ship—and when we stepped out and looked up we saw the rot.”

 

“Rot?”

 

“What the Mirocongi hadn’t realized, what they _couldn’t_ have realized was that if the Shadowmen cross into our universe, they are inimical to all reality around them.  The Mirocongi punctured the barriers, and everything within their atmosphere became . . . wrong.  Time caught in tangled knots, speeding and slowing and looping about itself so violently I became ill.  Salyavin—my friend—passed out.  Millions of miles away from the planet, and it still had the power to do that!”  He shook his head.  “And it wasn’t just time affected.  The physical dimensions had been warped, as well.  Chunks of the planet were missing, strange lights and colors in their places.  In other areas we could see the surface of the planet roiling, the land shaking like liquid.  And there were other things I can’t even describe to you.  I can barely conjure them in my own mind, they were so strange.  So very alien.”

 

“That’s what we went through in the basement, wasn’t it?”

 

“A muted version, but yes.”

 

“And if whoever’s doing this succeeds, that sort of thing happens everywhere.  Only not muted.”

 

“And it won’t be hallucinations, either.  All the things we saw will be real.”

 

She nodded, swallowing around the lump in her throat as she tried to envision what it must have been like to see reality shredded.  What strange creatures and places the Mirocongi must have seen before they went mad or died or whatever happened to them.  “Were there any survivors?” she asked.  “Did any of the Mirocongi get away?”

 

“No.  Nor did we get any more messages.”

 

“And Mirocongia itself?  What happened to it?”

 

His face showed her centuries of guilt.  “We couldn’t allow the possibility of spreading the contamination.  A small fleet of TARDISes was dispatched, and they created a temporal distortion around the entire planet.  After that, it slipped through the distortion, fell through the vortex, and was expelled into one of the outer dimensions.”

 

“What are those?”

 

“Graveyards for temporal and spatial mistakes.  The universe’s way of sorting out its major problems.”  Ace opened her mouth for another question, but he forestalled her with a raised hand.  “But mostly, they’re a story for another time.”

 

She was a little embarrassed at how easily she had got sidetracked, but this was just the sort of thing that fascinated her.  Weird higher dimensions that functioned as a sort of multiversal rubbish heap!  Every concept the Doctor had brought up filled her with curiosity and fired her imagination.  It was easy to see how people who only had a partial understanding could find Shadowmen and all their implications so irresistible. 

 

But the Mirocongi had figured out too late that there were some things best left unanswered.  And even if the initial shock of reality falling apart hadn’t killed them, the unshielded fall through the vortex definitely had.  The Time Lords had killed an entire planet to stop the run in the fabric of time and space, like applying clear nail polish to a pair of hose.  And the Doctor had seen everything.  Small wonder he had such a strong reaction to the Shadowmen.

 

“How much power would you need to open a gateway to their universe?” she asked, thinking fast.

 

“Massive amounts.  As much as a TARDIS puts out and then some.”  He peered at her.  “Why?”

 

“Would the hotel’s generator be enough to power it?”

 

“No.”

 

She nodded.  “Then we’ve got a way to find this machine.  It’ll be tapping all the major buildings for power, right?  There’s no other source that we’ve seen.  So we follow the emissions and see where they go.”

 

A slow smile spread across the Doctor’s face.  They had a plan, and there was nothing her Doctor liked better.  He had a fundamental need to feel in control.  So did she, for that matter.  They’d always had more in common than they’d admitted, either to others or often to themselves.

 

She returned the smile, and the intimacy of the moment caught up with her.  There they sat, alone in—well, all right, a fisherman’s shack wasn’t exactly the most romantic of locales, but even that seemed oddly appropriate for them.  The point was that they were alone.  She was still seated on the floor, and he was kneeling in front of her.  His eyes were twinkling and he was really very appealing, his features thrown into bright lights and deep shadows by the bare bulb over their heads.  She felt that same odd rush of sensation and desire she’d felt at the ball, but this time it stemmed not from the thrilling unreality of the moment, but from their own particular brand of kicks.  There was a mystery to be solved, a world to save, and it was up to the unstoppable duo of the Doctor and Ace to make things right.

 

She wasn't sure whether she was reacting to the familiarity of the danger or to the man.  Either way, she couldn't quite stop the images forming in her mind: her hands reaching to hold his head, her mouth finding his, the possibilities that opened up before them with such an unmistakable, deliberate kiss . . . or, come to that, the possibilities that were cancelled out by doing so.  And there were so many things that could get cancelled out, right up to their friendship and trust.  Problem was, she'd imagined it now.  It was there in her thoughts, almost like a _fait accompli_.  And as with most things, it was the waiting that would drive her insane.  Might as well just—

 

The door to the hut clattered open, shattering the moment and leaving Ace with a vague sense of rather queasy horror.  She didn’t have time to process it, though, because Terrin and Meeka came barreling in and slammed the door behind them.  Meeka’s once-beautiful updo was a mess, and Terrin looked like he’d fallen into the surf. 

 

The Doctor stood.  “What’s happened?” he demanded, taking immediate control of the situation.

 

“Don’t know,” Terrin gasped, leaning against the doorframe.  “We went to the cabana for a spot of tea like you said, Doctor, but it was deserted!  Torn apart.  Not a soul there.  And we heard . . . noises.  We came back fast as we could once we saw the place.”

 

Ace took all those irritating, jumbled-up feelings she had and stuffed them away.  Not the place for them, and very much not the time.  She met the Doctor’s gaze levelly and asked, “Can the Shadowmen do that?  Just vanish people like that?”

 

He looked pensive and frustrated.  “Not to my knowledge, but we don’t know what happens when the barriers start to break down.  Maybe they could.”  He made a noise of frustration.  “There’s just so much we don’t know about them.  About the universe they inhabit.”

 

“If it helps, whatever was in the cabana didn’t give me the same . . . feeling,” Terrin supplied, his features scrunched in recollection.  “With those shadowy blighters I felt like I’d fallen into a snow-melt.  In the cabana there was more of a ‘something’s off but I can’t put my bally finger on it’ sort of feeling.  No chill in the air or what have you.”

 

“Something else did it, then?” Ace suggested.

 

“Such as?”  The Doctor’s tone was irritatingly pedagogical, like this was all just an academic exercise and not a struggle for their lives.

 

“I don’t know!  You’re the expert on all these other dimensions.”

 

“Perhaps something smaller,” Meeka said from her miserable huddle on a half-barrel of fish chum. 

 

Ace looked to the Doctor.  It wasn’t a bad idea.  The Shadowmen were too big to fit through the little cracks in reality that had thus far been created, but something from their dimension of a lesser size . . .

 

The Doctor’s eyes said ‘yes,’ and he sprang to his feet, took Meeka’s hand and shook it with enthusiasm.  “Meeka, my dear,” he said, “you are a perfect genius!”

 

“I am?”

 

Ace was on her feet, too, but she was pacing, her mind on logistics.  “Too right you are!” she said.  “What we’re looking at here, I think, are the initial waves.  Ground troops sent to test our resistance and soften us up a bit before the Shadowmen take us down.”  She glanced up at the assembled group, all of whom were looking to her for answers.  Even the Doctor was stepping aside and letting her do the thinking on this one.  Ace felt a tingle of delight run through her before she could stomp it down.  “We’re looking at an invasion,” she said.

 

And then they heard the knocking at the door. 

 

It was the same knocking they’d heard back at the hotel: quiet and rhythmic.  Meeka let out a small, scared noise.  Terrin took up the only weapon available to him, which seemed to be a very old, very used boning knife lying on one of the shelves.  Ace turned towards the door.

 

“It must have followed us from the cabana,” Terrin said.

 

“Do we . . . do we answer it?” Meeka asked.

 

The Doctor and Ace exchanged glances.  They could wait and hope the knocking just went away, but that thought didn’t sit well with Ace and she was sure it didn’t sit well with the Doctor either.  Whatever was behind the door was more likely to break it down if ignored.  And that door was the only exit from the shack, given Ace’s current lack of a handy chainsaw.  It was better to do this on their terms: to wrench open the door, confront the baddie with at least a modicum of surprise on their side and—

 

The Doctor started forward instead of her, which was not part of Ace’s plan.  Moving quicker than she usually gave him credit for, he took the handle and, with Ace near his elbow and reaching to stop him, pulled open the door. 

 

Standing there, hand still raised to deliver the next knock, was a deathly pale woman.  Her blue hair was so dark it bordered on black, contrasting sharply with her ashen skin.  It was her eyes, though, that would haunt Ace.  They were pure, blank white.  She could see the discs where the pupils and irises once were, but it was as though they had been gone over with a splash of milk. 

 

“Hello?” the Doctor asked.  “Are you all right?”

 

“Somehow I doubt the answer can be ‘yes’.”  Ace put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.  He had the worst sense of caution in the known universe.

 

The woman’s head began to pivot slowly, turning towards them fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch while the rest of her body remained perfectly still.  Even the Doctor seemed to feel the wrongness of the gesture.  He and Ace took a synchronous step away from the woman in the doorway.

 

“Can you hear me?” the Doctor asked in a different and altogether more powerful register.  Ace could feel his words in her bones and knew he was asking with more than just his voice. 

 

The woman’s head snapped the rest of the way around, and her unseeing eyes found the Doctor.  Her mouth gaped open so far her jaw had to have come unhinged, forming a perfect, horrible O.  She hurled herself forward.

 

The Doctor let out a cry of shock as she hit him, her mouth fastened to the side of his neck.  His hands came up to shove her away, but he couldn’t seem to do it.  His head snapped back at a near-painful angle and he let out a choking sound. 

 

Ace threw herself at the woman, shoulder-checking her with every ounce of force she had.  For a long second, the woman held out against even Ace’s momentum.  Then, just as Ace began to ponder more desperate and more distasteful measures of detachment, most of which involved the boning knife she’d seen Terrin pick up, the woman fell away.  She hit the floor in a boneless sprawl, her mouth still fixed in its rictus O and her blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t move. 

 

Ace shouted at Terrin, “Shove her out the door before she decides to get up!”  All her attention, though, was fixed on the Doctor.  He stood, swaying, with his head bowed and his eyes closed.  His skin drained of color before her eyes, becoming paler still than the woman’s had been, the contrast between it and his dark hair even greater.  Then he tumbled to the floor.

 

Ace was on her knees at his side in an instant, rolling him onto his back and frantically loosening his tie.  Her fingers slipped under his collar and fumbled for a pulse.  Just one and she’d be happy.

 

Nothing.  Not a single sign of life.  She knew from experience that it didn’t mean much, but her heart was still in her throat as she reached out a hand to touch his shoulder.  “Professor?” she asked.  “Doctor?”

 

His eyes snapped open.  They were a blank white.


	7. Foothold Situation

Meeka shrieked, but Ace’s eyes were fixed on the Doctor’s.  He wasn’t looking at her yet, but she could still see that there was no recognition within those milky eyes, no spark of life there.  There weren’t even pupils.  If that bitch had killed him . . .

 

Ace reached out toward the Doctor, unsure what she was going to do but feeling it necessary to take some sort of action.  “Professor?” she whispered, the sound echoing loud in the little shack.

 

Her hand was nearly to his cheek when he sat up with a jerk.  A latticework of frost spread out from where his hands pressed the wooden panels of the floor and Ace shivered as the temperature plummeted.  She fell back and dropped into a defensive crouch.  Right now she had to remember that he wasn’t her ally.  He wasn’t her friend.  He wasn’t the man . . .

 

His head started to turn towards her.

 

She got ready to fight, but all her instincts railed against an immediate and all-out assault.  Not only was this the Doctor, but also she had no idea what the thing inside him was, and she couldn’t fight what she didn’t understand.  Ace forced her eyes and her mind past that state of panic and loss and started analyzing.  She focused on the point where the zombie-woman had attached to him.  More frost.  A patch of skin just above his collar was white as death and surrounded by a ring of ice crystals.

 

She remembered the cold of the Shadowmen and the freeze-dried mummies in Terrin’s room.  Surely this wasn’t how it happened; some unseen cold passing from one body to another and freezing from the inside out.

 

She forced herself to calm down.  She had to watch, analyze.  The only way to save him was to think.  The Doctor didn’t look like a mummy yet, and there were still hints of skin-tone teasing at the edges of the white.  And those eyes, that ring of ice . . . _that was it_: an entry point for some creature or device.  Something had passed from the zombie woman and into the Doctor.  And whatever went in had to be able to come out.  She knew she had to fight it, how she would fight would come through trial and error.

 

The elation of victory lasted all of two seconds before the Doctor’s head snapped all the way around and he lunged.  She dodged out of the way and the Doctor stopped, his head once more turning toward her.  He’d do this forever, she realized, until she was too tired or too slow or just unlucky.  And then she’d be next.  She needed a plan: a way to get that thing out of his head.

 

They circled one another in the narrow confines of the fisherman’s shack, barely arm’s reach apart.  Ace continued to observe his movements and look for weaknesses, even as her body prepared for an all-out brawl.

 

There was a line of ice-crystals running across the Doctor’s neck, disappearing from view.  They were the best bet for a significant clue she’d seen yet, so she dropped a shoulder and spun low, coming back up behind him.  His head was already slowly turning to follow her, seemingly independent of the rest of his body.  The movement continued to obscure the ice, but she’d seen what she needed: a glimpse of a line of ice-crystals running up the side and then the back of his neck and into his hairline.  Something traveling up the spinal cord into his brain.

 

A directed attack against minds.  That was new.  The hallucinations and the cadre of Shadowmen were bad enough, but this new menace was mobile.  Fast and efficient.  She had to get it out of the Doctor’s head before permanent damage set in—if it hadn’t already—but she didn’t know how.  And even if she did manage to extract it, how was she supposed to contain or destroy it once it was out in the open?

 

The thing in the Doctor seemed fixated on her.  Terrin and Meeka were still present; Terrin had dragged the zombie woman outside, but hadn’t had the good sense to grab Meeka and run for it afterwards.  They stood huddled against a wall.  Meeka was just a pathetic ball of terror by that point and Terrin was playing at being the grand hero ready to save his lady.  Thank God the Doctor didn’t seem to notice they were there, or there would be one more grand hero chalked up to cannon fodder. 

 

Ace had been distracted for mere seconds by Terrin and Meeka, but it was enough.  The Doctor’s head reached the point once more where it snapped around again.  Ace caught a glimpse of the sudden movement out of the corner of her eye and the virus within her reared up, screaming at her to move.  She threw herself forward even as the Doctor lunged, and she did a fast somersault across the floor, coming back up to her feet some distance away.  She spun around to check on the Doctor, but he was standing again, head turning toward her.  His movement had, without her intention, brought him close to the two people she’d intended to protect from this.  As his blank stare passed over her, Meeka screamed.

 

The Doctor’s head stopped moving at the sound.  His shoulders lifted and he took a step back.  It was the first aberration from his pattern of slow-head-turn and then a whip around for the final assault.  Why?  The way his shoulders had hunched when she had screamed, it was almost as though . . . as though he’d been hurt.

 

The Doctor was still standing where he had been, his head still facing Meeka.  As silence fell once more, he seemed to regain his focus.  Mercilessly, the cycle of wait-and-dodge began again as he Doctor’s head began to turn towards Ace’s newest location.  Ace braced herself to dodge again, her thoughts whirling with possibilities.  A sensitivity to sound maybe?  But what kind?  Loud?  High?  Melodic?  What?

 

Terrin’s eyes widened as he came to the same conclusion.  “It’s the sound!” he blurted.  Ace’s heart was in her throat when his voice shattered the stillness and the Doctor froze once more.  Terrin went on, oblivious.  “It’s drawn to sound!  You made with the gab and it went after you.  Then Meeka screamed, and now I . . .”  The Doctor’s head was turning towards him.  Terrin swallowed hard.  “I seem to be next.”

 

The Doctor had winced when Meeka screamed, but hadn’t when Terrin had shouted.  Could they do something with a certain kind of sound to drive it away?  She made a snap decision that she hoped didn’t get them all killed.  “Oi!” she shouted.  “Everybody make some noise!”

 

“What?” Terrin gasped.

 

“Shout, scream, sing for all I care.”  The Doctor, drawn by the sound of her voice, was now turning slowly back to Ace.  Tensed and ready for his lunge, she shouted, “Just make it _loud!_”

 

Taking the lead on her new plan, she started shouting.  Lyrics to songs she remembered from her childhood, of all things, but it was a steady stream of noise and that was what she needed.  Meeka started screaming—long, piercing noises—and Terrin seemed to be reciting some sort of epic poem at the top of his lungs.

 

The Doctor stood in their midst, his head twitching from one side to the other.  Ace felt a surge of victory. 

 

And then, with a shake of his whole body, the Doctor’s head started to turn towards her once more.  His face was as blank as ever, but there was a hard light in his white eyes.  Terrin and Meeka faltered and lapsed into silence.  Ace’s heart plummeted.  The noise idea, which had seemed the perfect option, had been fought and overcome by the thing in the Doctor’s head.  And she was out of ideas.

 

“Over here, you daft thing!” Terrin shouted, to no avail.

 

Not quite out of ideas, she corrected herself.  There was one option left.  The worst one.  The one that guaranteed her death and only gave the slightest hope for saving the Doctor’s life.  But she might save him, and might was better than anything else she had.  Clenching her hands into tight fists at her sides, Ace forced the decision upon herself.  She’d do it.  An act of self-sacrifice probably even a noble one.  Didn’t matter.  What mattered was the chance to get that thing out of the Doctor.  Hopefully he would understand and forgive her.

 

She slipped a hand into her pocket.  There, under her fingers, was her good luck charm.  She’d never needed it until now, but believed in being prepared.  The marble of condensed microcharge felt smooth and inviting when it rolled between her fingers.  One flick in the right place, and she and the thing in the Doctor’s head were yesterday’s lunch.  She wouldn’t even feel it.

 

Decision made, Ace prepared herself.  First thing she had to do was draw the Doctor off.  She wanted him well away from Terrin and Meeka, neither of whom deserved to go down with her.  She circled around again, getting her back to the door.

 

“You two,” she said, her voice admirably steady.  “Get out of here and run.  Fast and far.  Find somewhere you can barricade yourselves in and just stay there.”

 

Terrin, predictably, had to be the one to resist.  “But—”

 

“Do it.  Or I’m dead, and then you’re dead.  And Meeka too.  You want all that death on your hands?”

 

There was a shuffle and the sound of a door opening, but not closing.  Ace didn’t have time to turn and see if they’d really gone.  She couldn’t risk taking her eyes off the enemy. 

 

Right.  The enemy.  The enemy she had to keep telling herself to fight.  The enemy whose arms—unnatural, stiff movements aside—had been around her only minutes before, and she’d _liked_ it.  Well, that problem would also be solved in a few moments.  Turned out that her lucky charm was good for a lot of things.

 

She glared into the Doctor’s blank gaze.  “Come on, then,” she whispered.  She raised her voice loud enough that she was sure to have its attention.  “If you want me, come and get me.”

 

She started walking in slow, precise steps back toward the door.  The Doctor’s feet dragged as he took shuffling steps after.  She prayed that his stiff movements were signs that the thing in his head didn’t have total control; that something within him was resisting.  It could well be wishful thinking, of course, but it gave her a glimmer of hope.  The Doctor surviving would be an added bonus at this point.

 

She backed out the door Terrin and Meeka had left open onto the sand of the beach.  It shifted under her boots, and the rushing of the tide reminded her of laughter and little creatures. 

 

She blinked furiously as the salt got in her eyes.

 

The monster wearing her friend’s face kept coming.  She got clear of the fisherman’s shack, and then said, “Get on with it, then.  Nice, juicy brain here for you to snack on.  Do your thing.  Get the hell out of him.”  She spread her arms and waited for the impact. Her fingers bit into the microcharge and got ready to detonate the second she felt that thing start to take control over her.

 

The Doctor lunged.

 

And behind him, Ace heard Meeka shout, “No!” 

 

Ace’s attention was drawn to the corner of the shack where the two locals hid and peeked out at her.  Terrin must have decided to wait around and try to help.  The idiot.  She was about to upbraid him within an inch of his life when Meeka staggered forward.  She held up a small device and pressed a button. 

 

The sound the device emitted was nothing short of breathtaking.  Something akin to a symphony of loon calls rose and fell and wove together in harmony.  The sound was intricate and haunting and more alien even than the Shadowmen had been.  Meeka hit another button and the song—for that was the only word Ace had for it—grew louder.

 

A fine trembling ran through the Doctor.  His hands rose in jerky movements toward his ears.

 

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ace muttered.  She had no clue what Meeka was doing, but she’d take the girl’s stroke of genius and run with it.  She shoved the microcharge back in her pocket, dashed forward and caught the Doctor’s wrists, struggling to push them back down and pin them to his sides. 

 

He was strong.  Far stronger than he looked or held himself to be.  She didn’t know if that was the creature or Time Lord physiology, but whichever it was, she knew she couldn’t keep this up for long.  If whatever Meeka was playing didn’t have an effect soon, she would lose her grip, and she was now immediately within strike range.  If the creature regained control for even a moment, she’d be dead.  That had, of course, been the original plan, but only when she’d thought she’d cleared the area of collateral damage.  And with her efforts to keep the Doctor’s arms down, she was no longer clinging to the microcharge.  If the creature jumped to her, it could possess her before she could detonate, which would leave the Doctor in a whole new world of trouble.

 

Just as Ace’s muscles began screaming in protest, the Doctor gasped and crumpled.  Meeka stood, clutching the device and staring down at him.  Terrin took a few unsteady steps forward, touched Meeka’s shoulder, and the two of them came closer. 

 

“Is he dead?” Meeka asked.  After a moment, she toggled down the volume of the device.

 

Ace had followed the Doctor down and was now crouched over him, feeling inside his collar for a pulse or a hint of warmth to his skin.  Nothing.

 

“No pulse, but that doesn’t mean a lot,” Ace said.  Could be true.  He didn’t have to be dead.  Please don’t let him be dead.  Not the Doctor.  Not just like that, so fast she hadn’t even had time to think.  He was the bloody Doctor.  He made it through anything.  There was no way some unexpected woman at the door could just kill him.

 

Except of course he could.  This was the life they led.  Death was a constant shadow looming above their heads, and the wrong move would bring it screaming down on them.  She’d accepted that fact a long time ago, but she’d accepted it because she’d always believed she’d be the one to die.  She wouldn’t have to pick up the pieces after.

 

She had to think of something else.  “What was that, anyway?” she asked, her voice terse and angry.

 

Meeka looked down at the device in her hand as if realizing it was there for the very first time.  “It was drawn to sound,” she said.  “And then you tried to overload it when we all shouted, yes?”

 

“Or at least confuse it, yeah.”

 

Meeka held out the device.  “It’s a tourist recording of the fish song.  I bought it from some man in a green tent yesterday and slipped it into my pocket.  I thought . . . people say it’s one of the most complex sounds in the universe.  We can’t hear them, but it even has sub-bass frequencies similar to those made by black holes.”

 

Ace stared up at Meeka as if seeing her for the first time.  The girl wasn’t only smart, but thought on her feet.  Hell of an act she put on for Terrin.

 

Speaking of whom, Terrin called from where he knelt next to the woman they’d thrown out, “This filly looks dead.  Hasn’t moved since I started watching her.  Hasn’t even breathed.  Do you suppose—”

 

“No,” Ace growled, because she was damned if she was moving past the ‘denial’ stage of grief without good reason.  She returned her attention, albeit reluctantly, to the frost-limned form huddled under her hands.

 

“Sorry,” Terrin said, his words steeped in chagrin.  “It was just a thought.”

 

“Well, don’t think it!  The Professor’ll be fine.  We just need to—”  The Doctor sat up in a convulsive jerk and even Ace fell back, tensed.  Her instincts told her to get ready to fight.  There was no telling if he was all right or if he was still under that thing’s control.  She hadn’t seen the body of whatever had possessed him.  He’d just collapsed, and now his eyes were squeezed closed.  She couldn’t see whether or not they were still blank.  His head slowly turned towards her.  Her heart pounded and the fists she’d made clenched. 

 

Then gray-blue eyes nearly swallowed up by dilated pupils opened to regard her.  “Ace?” he asked.

 

She whooped and barreled into him with an embrace that knocked him flat.  She didn’t care.  She didn’t care that Terrin and Meeka were standing a discreet distance away.  He was alive.  She could feel his relative warmth returning.  It was easily the best thing she’d ever felt and she hugged closer, pressing into the folds of his clothes.  If his recovery could be speeded up by her additional warmth, it was all his. 

 

In the potency of her relief, she heard herself muttering words that came out smothered in his jacket.  “Don’t you _ever_ do that again!” she said, choked and too overwhelmed to worry about something as small as blubbing all over him.  “I lied when I said it was someone else’s turn.  If one of us is going to die, it had _better_ be me!”

 

There was a pressure against her head.  The Doctor was returning her embrace, even while prone in the sand with her weight atop him.  He patted her hair and his answer came out as a soft, wheezing, “Yes, yes, all right, Ace!”  But then her reaction seemed to register, because he segued directly from those words to stroking her hair and making reassuring ‘shhh’ noises.

 

Ace stopped muttering and drew her first deep breath since she’d seen the zombie-woman at the door.  The Doctor was back.  She could hear him and touch him and breathe him in.  She pulled back far enough to look again into those reinstated familiar eyes.  The Doctor looked back and smiled.  Something tightened in her chest; something undeniable.  Something she finally couldn’t ignore . . .

 

It chose that moment to happen.  Everything clicked into place and the denial she’d lived with happily for years was ripped away.  She had fallen for him.  She couldn’t blame alcohol and she couldn’t blame temporary insanity.  She was head over heels for the Doctor, and it was all down to her.

 

When had it happened?  _Why_ had it happened?  The worst possible thing—the only thing she could have done that he’d never get over or forgive her for—and she’d gone and done it anyway.  Ever since the almost-kiss at the ball, there had been a new element to add to the equation that was them.  No.  For longer than that.  For years.  The seeds of this had been sown the first time they’d met, and had been growing their entire acquaintance.  Only the changes had been so slow she hadn’t noticed them until they right there in her face and large as life.  So there it was: the pleasant and unnamed tension that had always drawn them incrementally closer was now identified, and it wasn’t what she thought it was or what it should have been and—

 

And he was looking at her, concern and wariness mixed in with the smile and the reassurance.  Never mind emotional epiphanies; now was not the time.  Ace reminded herself that they still had an audience.  She scooted back, embarrassed by her display.  The Doctor, no longer pinned to the sand, propped himself up on his elbows.

 

“I take it you were worried,” he said. 

 

She snorted.  “Next time,” she said, “just let her knock.”

 

“Yes, well, answering the door seemed like a good idea at the time.”

 

She looked at him closely, at the haunted look in his eyes.  She didn’t know how much he’d seen, but she was willing to bet that it had been a hell of a ride.  “How much do you remember?” she asked.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

What he remembered was a place.  He’d opened his eyes (not his real eyes, of course, but his mind’s eye) to see a darkling plain and buildings made of twisted metal.  The icy world on which he stood hung in a universe of black suns where even the concept of light didn’t exist.  Sight, as it was defined in his own universe, didn’t exist either.  The senses of the beings in that universe had developed in a completely different direction.  They saw with their minds, picking up the energy of everything around to form a picture.  Higher life forms could sense greater distances, creating a mental picture of their world that was better than sight.

 

The Doctor had known the thing inside him was not a higher life form.  It barely counted as sentient.  Rather, it was a creation, an instrument of the master builders, the Shadowmen.  Its being existed to consume data, a sort of infovore, and then pass it along to the Shadowmen in a sort of telepathic symbiosis.  Except that was the wrong concept.  It wasn’t telepathic because that implied a conscious decision.  Rather, its mere presence formed a link which would then transmit to all Shadowmen in the area.  They would know whatever it knew because that was what it had been created for.

 

And he’d known more.  Once the infovore’s store of data had all been transmitted, the creature would become never-been.  Because along with light, there was no death in the Shadowmen’s universe.  The very concept was inconceivable: that when something ceased to be it could still be remembered.  The Shadowmen existed purely in the present.  The past was only relevant as the forge in which the present was created; it existed in the abstract, with none of the details or nuances or memory.  The future was even more unknowable than the past, and even less relevant as it had no bearing on the one time frame that did exist: now.  This was a universe with no loss, no regret, no grief.  It was also a universe with no joy and no love, because these things required the context of time.  It was a universe without time.

 

And as the Doctor’s mental eyes had widened, as he’d understood the full implications of such a place and its inhabitants, his mind had shut down.  The infovore had reached his brain and begun to assimilate his thoughts and knowledge.  Thankfully, though his awareness had been overwhelmed by the desolation of the other universe, his brain had defenses that required no trigger beyond a foreign intrusion.  All function had stopped to protect the integrity of the data.  Those same defenses would effectively reboot him only when the problem had been dealt with.

 

And they _had_ rebooted him.  _Ergo_, something or someone had dealt with the problem.  But how?  To all intents and purposes, extracting something like that should have been impossible.  He cast back, searching for answers, but found only lingering flashes of the creature’s memory of the real world.  Snapshot images of the terrified faces of the people around him.  Ace’s hardened resolve.  Her standing on the beach with her arms outspread looking at him with such challenge—

 

The Doctor frowned, searching the memory for some clue, something . . . and then he went quite, quite cold.  No.  Oh, Guardians, that wasn’t possible.  Surely Ace wasn’t fool enough to _invite_ such a creature into her?  To think she stood the slightest chance against it?

 

The question returned him to the here and now.  Even as he told himself that the memory couldn’t possibly have been accurate, he knew he was deluding himself.  Ace was fidgeting, almost as though she’d been reading his thoughts.  Before he could challenge her on what she’d done, she spoke first.

 

 “It was ready to jump ship the second you came to!  I just gave it a place to go before it took out your entire brain.”

 

Apparently, Ace _was_ fool enough.  The Doctor felt an unexpected surge of undiluted anger at the thought she would have done something so mad.  Didn’t she know she could have been killed?  That there was no possible way she could have survived the intrusion without a Gallifreyan constitution?  Of course she must have.  She’d seen the woman at the door, effectively an animated corpse.  The snapshot of her standing on the beach became clearer, the resolution sharper.  He once again saw Ace’s arms outspread, but with the heightened acuity he also saw that one hand clutched something small and metallic.  Something he knew only too well. 

 

Her solution for everything.

 

“You were planning on killing yourself!” he managed, aware that his tone was razor-sharp and that Terrin and Meeka, who stood in the periphery, drew back a few paces to avoid the inevitable verbal blows.

 

Ace’s face flushed, her eyes flashed, and the battle was joined.  She all but shouted, “You were dying!”

 

That was an excuse?  He died!  It was a part of his lives.  It was unpleasant but unavoidable, as he’d found out six times already.  But if she died . . . didn’t she understand she couldn’t come back from that?  That she would go somewhere—if indeed she went anywhere at all—he couldn’t follow her?  His voice sounded brittle even to his ears.  “And if your brilliant plan hadn’t worked?  If we’d both died?  What then?  Who saves this world if you throw your life away for a minor detail?”

 

“It wasn’t a minor detail!  It was _you_!”

 

“In the grand scheme of things we’re both minor details!  I’d think that by now you’d have that kind of perspective!”

 

Ace blanched white and the Doctor immediately knew he’d crossed some unseen line.  They’d got in an argument and he’d let himself speak before he thought.  That had never happened with any other companion!  Well, hardly ever.  There were a few exceptions, but nothing like this.  Ace had the most uncanny knack for infuriating him.

 

And she had the ability to make him feel horribly guilty about it, too.  Before his eyes, Ace crumpled a bit, the fight going out of her as she whispered, “Of course.  Sorry.  It won’t happen again.”  She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

 

The Doctor knew he must have done something awful.  Ace wasn’t the sort of woman who acted cowed, and she certainly didn’t back down unless he managed to strike a very raw nerve.  He reached out and touched her arm.  “Ace?” he asked, trying to understand what it was it was he’d done.

 

She jerked to her feet, shied away and said, “No, you’re right.  We’ve got work to do and a planet to save.  We need to get to it.”  Her posture straightened and she looked over his shoulder.  “Oi, Meeka!” she shouted.  “Bring us that gadget of yours.  If it can take out one of those things, we might be able to modify it to do more damage.”  Her chill eyes flickered over the Doctor and her tone was curt as she explained, “Meeka used some sort of sonic device to take care of the thing in your head.  Don’t know how.  You’ll figure it out.”

 

And then she walked away from him, over to the girl in question.

 

There was nothing to be said.  He’d done something wrong and Ace was shutting down and shutting him out because of it.  And he had no idea what it was!  He couldn’t correct something he didn’t even understand.  Terrin moved in close and offered a hand.  The Doctor used it as leverage to pull himself to his feet, but didn’t even acknowledge the help.  Somewhat remiss of him, yes, but his attention was very firmly elsewhere. 

 

He gave Ace as encouraging a look as he could muster when she came back and handed him the device Meeka had apparently used to force the infovore from his brain.  Ace didn’t look up at him, and he realized that whatever their problem was, it wasn’t going to be solved with a smile.  He hoped they’d get a chance to sit down and talk this over properly.  For now, though . . . “I’m right here,” he said, hoping the words could make some kind of amends.

 

He got a tight, pained smile, and Ace’s cryptic reply: “You always are.”

 

She turned her back on him for a second time (and was it coincidence, or did she know how much that action pained him and did it anyway?) and led them away from the fisherman’s shack.  The Doctor was right behind her, determined not to let her out of his sight.  He felt more than heard Terrin and Meeka hesitate a second and then follow them across the moonlit beach.

 

The Doctor found himself frowning at Ace's back.  Over the years her mannerisms had become so like his own that these moments - when they had not so much a disagreement as a complete misfire of communication - always surprised him.  He’d told her that he frequently forgot she was human, and that was true in every sense.  He forgot how easily humans could be hurt.  Most of the time Ace seemed so invincible. 

 

Humans were extremely complicated, and for a being like him they were sometimes impossible to fathom.  There was a level of emotional awareness they possessed that he couldn’t approach. When he was small, the Doctor had been told that certain emotions, certain drives had been eradicated from Gallifreyan genetics and culture when reproduction was handed over to the loom and each individual was woven from the DNA of an entire society.  What emotions were left were kept, by birth and upbringing, at a very quiet simmer.  The Doctor, for all his rebellion against the norm and all his love of other, more tempestuous species, was still at his hearts very much Gallifreyan.  Generally speaking, it took him a very long time and a great deal of provocation to feel any more than the quietest murmur of surface emotions.  Even this incarnation, whose emotions boiled much hotter than many of his previous selves, still found the vast majority of human emotions incomprehensible.  He simply wasn't built for it.

 

So he did what he always did in situations like this: nothing at all.  There was nothing he _could _do.  The problem had been noted and, at a later (much later, possibly never) time, it would be dealt with.  He moved on to the more immediate - not to mention comprehensible - task in hand.

 

He drew up close to Ace and examined the device.  It was a simple audio player, and the controls were easy enough to learn that it took him mere seconds.  It would take him a bit longer to determine how to take it apart and how each component worked, but with this level of technology, it was still a matter of minutes rather than hours.  Of course, such an investigation would require a bit of exploration of the various functions of this device, and he didn’t want to trigger the playback mode at this point.  For all he knew, the sound it emitted could also be used to draw the infovores to him.  And he knew from the flashes he’d seen that there _were_ more of them.  The Shadowmen had built armies to bring them information.

 

He’d analyze the content once he was back in the TARDIS.  It was the logical next stop for planning, provisioning, and . . . other issues.  He glanced over his shoulder at Terrin and Meeka and made a decision.  Both had proved valuable allies, yes, but if they kept trying to lend a hand, they would probably get killed as things got progressively more dangerous.  So would Ace, of course, but dissuading Ace from helping would be the equivalent of convincing the High Council of Time Lords to stop interfering in his affairs. Terrin and Meeka, on the other hand . . .

 

"Our first stop will be the TARDIS," he said, pitching his voice to just the register which would cause Ace’s head to turn slightly, her eyes to tick sideways to regard him.  He caught her eye.  Her gaze flickered minutely back towards their two companions and the Doctor gave a slight nod.  They understood one another.  The TARDIS would probably be the only safe place on the planet, and as such it was an ideal refuge for two would-be adventurers.

 

Even after their disagreement, with that single glance they fell easily into old rhythms.  Ace’s pace slowed until he was nearly flanking her.  Not quite, though.  She never allowed him to draw even; she always remained slightly ahead.  Doing so ensured that she would be the first to face any potential danger.  She took the most awful risks on his behalf, and it wasn’t even at his request.  At one time, he wouldn’t have hesitated to send her, even at sixteen, into a firefight if that was what his plan required. 

 

How times changed.  These days he never watched her go into danger without a twinge of worry.  She always went, regardless.  The whole thing seemed topsy-turvy: wouldn't it have made sense for him to feel more protective towards the teenager who was new to his life of adventure, rather than towards the seasoned and skilled woman she had become?  Perhaps it would, but it had never crossed his mind that he should be more protective until she required his concern less.  And now this was how things stood between them.  Ace was her own woman, and she'd decided that she would protect him.  He'd encouraged her behavior for so long that he had no means to stop her any more.  He hated it.  Not so much that he had a competent partner by his side, because that was both helpful and reassuring; nor could he honestly say he hated the way Ace valued him enough to _want _to protect him.  He quite liked that.  But he hated that her choices made her constantly risk injury and death.

 

Hated?  An odd word for a Time Lord to use.  But it was . . . yes, it was the right word.  The Doctor arched a brow at himself and wondered whether it wasn't so much the case that he kept forgetting Ace was human, but rather that he'd begun to forget that he _wasn't_.

 

Night had fallen (rather early, he thought, and worried that time on this planet was getting further and further away from what it should be) and the calm waters of the day before had given way to turbulent, choppy surf.  The cross-tides collided in violent sprays of bioluminescent foam.

 

“The whole world’s falling apart,” Ace said, her voice low in his ear, barely heard over the crashing of the breakers.

 

“The very basis of its reality is splintering,” he agreed. 

 

“But _why_?” Meeka asked.  The Doctor wasn’t terribly surprised the young woman had overheard them.  She and Terrin were keeping quite close, and their species had excellent hearing.  “Why is this happening?”

 

Ace shrugged, and this close he felt more than saw the movement.  “Remember those shadowy blokes in the basement?” she asked.  "Someone's trying to talk to them.  Someone from this world.  Only they don't realize - or they don't care - that the Shadowmen are different to us.  We're from different universes, like matter and antimatter - we come together and everything goes up."

 

Meeka frowned.  Clearly this wasn’t the sort of situation a girl like her wanted to be in.

 

“How do we stop them?” Terrin asked.

 

Ace opened her mouth, but the Doctor beat her to the punch.  “We’ll discuss that once we’re safe in the TARDIS,” he said.  Ace gave him a disapproving look and he gave a minute shrug.  Just because he’d promised not to keep things from her didn’t mean the practice applied to anyone else.  And first-time adventurers are generally so much more malleable if one relocates them to a more comfortable environment.

 

He trekked across the sand, barely noticing the icy salt spray coming off the ocean.  He made for the small cove in which he’d landed the TARDIS.  Occasionally he thought he saw people walking the streets of the nearby city, but their dragging steps spoke of something else entirely.  His little band kept to the beach.

 

They finally skirted around a rocky cliff that seemed to demarcate the end of the beach.  The narrow passage between stone and sea opened onto the small, rocky inlet with an incongruous blue box standing in between two boulders.

 

“I think I’m hallucinating again,” Terrin whispered.

 

“That’s no hallucination, mate,” Ace said.  “That’s our home.”

 

“A bit cramped,” Meeka said.

 

The Doctor, in spite of the situation, smiled.  This was the part he always loved.  He walked over to the TARDIS, fished out his key, unlocked the door, and then held it open for his guests.  “Shall we?” he asked.

 

Terrin went first, followed by Meeka.  Ace came after, and on an impulse he offered her an arm.  She took it and they slipped into the comforting interior of his ship.  The doors closed, and for the first time since the incident in the hallway the Doctor allowed himself to relax.  This place, at least, was off-limits to the forces outside.  This was neutral ground.

 

At least he hoped so.  Guardians help the intelligence that tried to harm his TARDIS.


	8. TARDIS Interlude

Ace had seen all the reactions to the TARDIS possible in her time with the Doctor.  Her own had been a combination of awe and the most pure joy she’d ever felt.  Back then, the TARDIS had been the epitome of the unknown.  A marvel of impossibility wrapped up in inexplicability.  If she were honest, most everything about the ship was still impossible and still inexplicable, but it was also her home.

 

And she was in good company.  The Doctor had been living in this thing for over four centuries and he still hadn’t quite mastered the ship.  He still got lost when it had a mind to move the rooms; he still couldn’t explain to her how it could be alive and a machine at the same time.  Or how, when the ship decided to, they could end up a million light years and two thousand years off course.  So Meeka’s shock was totally expected.  As was Terrin’s curiosity.  Both reactions were normal when confronted with something as insane as a Gallifreyan time capsule.

 

“I say,” Terrin said, “you two really are Lords of Time, aren’t you?”

 

The Doctor, bent over the display screen on the console, glanced up and said, “I generally prefer ‘Time Lords’.”

 

Ace decided she might as well come clean.  “And he’s the only Time Lord here.”

 

Terrin gawked at her.  “But I thought—”

 

She tried not to look chagrined.  “It was supposed to be a bit of fun, pretending to be a Time Lady for a night.  Didn’t realize I’d see anyone from the ball again.”

 

Meeka gawped at her.  “But if you’re not a Lor—Time Lady, then what are you?”

 

“Plain old human.  Well, mostly.  Do you know what a human is?”  Two dumbfounded nods gave her as much answer as she was likely to get out of the culture-shocked pair.  “Then that’s what I am.  Picked up a cheetah virus years ago that gives my senses a bit of a boost, but other than that I’m as run-of-the-mill human as you get.”

 

The Doctor was moving towards the doors to the rest of the ship.  Ace wasn’t sure why.  His reasons, as usual, were his own.  Before he disappeared, she heard him murmur, “Now I really wouldn’t say that.”

 

Ace grinned.  Terrin looked quizzical.  Meeka slid down the nearest roundeled wall and sat on the floor.  That snapped both Ace and Terrin out of their momentary reveries.  Terrin hurried over to his lady friend, who’d possibly fainted dead away, or was in shock, or was simply seeking attention.  He touched her cheek.  “Meeka, old girl?” he asked.

 

Nothing.  Ace took his arm and pulled him gently away.  “It’s been a long day for her,” she said.  “Maybe it’s best to leave her be for a bit.”

 

Terrin looked like he would argue, but then he frowned and said, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

 

“Do you want tea or something?  We’ve got a kitchen.”

 

He smiled.  “Tea would be lovely.”

 

Ace led him to the kitchen by the usual route: she wandered around and waited for the TARDIS to put the desired room in her path.  As she went, she gestured to other rooms and explained their contents to the enraptured Terrin.  The ship seemed more than willing to put on a bit of a show because each door whooshed open dramatically as she announced it.  They saw the study, the cloisters, the swimming pool—the second of its kind on the TARDIS, according to the Doctor, though God only knew what happened to the first—then the mountain range.  After closing the door on the latter, Ace noticed that Terrin’s face was ashen and his eyes were the size of saucers.  She decided to bring an end to the guided tour at that point.

 

The ship seemed to agree, since the kitchen door appeared not long after.  Once inside, Ace guided Terrin to a chair and eased him into it. She set a cup of tea before him and he seemed to drink it on autopilot.  Here was the shock then.  It happened sometimes.  People held it together very well as long as they stayed in the control room, but when they stepped out, when they got lost in the maze that was her home, they couldn’t maintain their cool.

 

She sat down opposite him and sipped her own tea.

 

It took him several minutes and half a cup of tea to find his voice.  “So you live here,” Terrin said, his tone so overawed it came out flat.

 

“For twelve years now.”

 

He raised his eyes from his cup and stared at her.  Honest emotion finally beat out shock, and when he spoke again he sounded plaintive.  “Does it still confuse you?”

 

Ace laughed.  “All the time.  She moves the rooms around, you know.”

 

“She?”

 

“The ship.”

 

“Is it—is she alive?”  Terrin looked around as if expecting the TARDIS herself to answer.

 

It was a valid question, if one of the toughest he could have asked.  “Well,” she said, “_I’d_ say yes, but it’s not any kind of life you can think of.  I can’t even explain why I’m sure she’s alive, except to say I am.”

 

“So,” he said, “you live in a ship that’s probably—but not definitely—alive, and you pop from world to world . . . doing what?”

 

“Oh, saving the day.  Attempting to have a nice quiet holiday, which inevitably leads to more saving the day.  Getting quite good at the old day-saving, me.”

 

Terrin nodded, but Ace wasn’t sure if it meant he understood, if he was agreeing that she was an excellent saver-of-days, or if it was just something for his head to do.  “So you’re going to save my world now,” he said.

 

Ace reached across the table and took Terrin’s hand, squeezing it.  “It’s what we do,” she said.

 

His forced laugh broke.  “I didn’t even know it needed saving until a few hours ago.”

 

“We—”

 

“Ah, there you are, Ace!  Have you seen the—oh.”  The Doctor drew up short as he saw that she wasn’t alone.  Ace pulled her hand out of Terrin’s and the Doctor shifted awkwardly.  “Terribly sorry,” he said and left.

 

Ace felt her mouth hanging open as the door slid closed behind him.  That wasn’t like the Doctor.  When he had a question, he just stepped in and asked it, regardless of whether or not a conversation was already underway.  He had absolutely no manners when it came to the pursuit of knowledge.

 

So why did he just leave?

 

“I say,” Terrin said.  “That was rather odd, wasn’t it?”

 

Ace kept staring at the door, her mind working fast.  “Yeah,” she muttered.

 

There was a long pause, and then Terrin spoke again, sounding somewhat uncomfortable this time.  “Shouldn’t you get after him?  I don’t want to cause any sort of domestic disturbance.”

 

It was the tone of his voice more than the words that brought her attention back to him.  Ace turned and gave him the friendliest smile she could muster.  “Oh, believe me, you’d know if we were having a domestic disturbance.  The volume alone would be a dead giveaway, not to mention the flying knick-knacks.”  She didn’t add that she was still trying to decide how furious she was with the Doctor for his browbeating back on the beach.

 

She knew she needed to stay and talk to Terrin.  He was overwhelmed, and besides, he might know something about the planet or the people that could help them figure out who was behind this invasion.  Of course, that was the logical part of her brain, and it was currently pinned flat under her emotions with a pillow shoved over its face. 

 

Her thoughts returned to the Doctor without her even noticing.  Had he left because she’d been holding hands with Terrin?  No, that wasn’t like him.  He never noticed that sort of thing.  And if he did, he’d never leap to the obvious—if clichéd—conclusion: that Ace was putting the moves on a blue-haired alien with a severe dose of culture shock.  So the Doctor’s reaction made no sense.  The day he became aware of her as a sexual being was the day Hell froze over.

 

Which was all well and good, but it didn’t explain his uncharacteristic response to a perfectly ordinary situation.  Even if she _had_ pulled her hand away like she’d been caught stealing biscuits.  Why had she done that?  She’d acted like she felt guilty.  The only circumstance in which her reaction would have made sense was if there was already an understanding between herself and the Doctor, and he was likely to get jealous.  Which was bonkers.

 

Ace always came back to the same conclusion.  She couldn’t think of any other reason.  She was probably being irrational now that her logic was asphyxiating, but . . . 

 

“The Devil might have to buy himself a pair of skates,” she whispered, an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice.

 

“I’m sorry?” Terrin asked.

 

“Nothing.  I just . . . I think I should help the Doctor.  Do you mind—”

 

He gave her a wan smile.  He’d seen this coming a mile away, Ace was sure.  Once her emotions took over, subtlety went out the window.  “Carry on,” Terrin said.  “I’ll stay here and finish the pot of tea.”

 

Ace didn’t say anything else, she just made for the door.  Logic and emotion were still struggling for supremacy in her mind, but both agreed that it was imperative she sort this out.  Situations like this festered all too readily.  The longer they were left without attention, the faster they became impossible to resolve.  Ace wouldn’t accept that.  Even if the Doctor _had_ behaved like an absolute git on the beach, just because she’d saved his life.

 

She made a mental list of things she needed to know: why he’d been so angry, for starters.  Honestly!  Lecturing her on perspective, as though saving the Doctor didn’t give the whole world a better chance.  QED.  He was going to have to do better than that.  And be very, very sorry . . . that’d help.  So there was that.  Then there was the reason he’d flounced out of the kitchen like some kind of rejected Romeo.  And come to that, how much he knew about the stuff she’d been feeling since the ball.  The point was, if he knew about it then they needed to deal with it.  She wasn’t going to throw their partnership away for the sake of a wayward libido, and everything else aside, they needed to trust one another.  It was coming up on the time when they’d have to head back into the fray.

 

She went to the library.  He had started to ask her where something was and, inevitably, if the Doctor couldn’t remember where he’d put something, he went to the library.  God only knew why.  It was never there. 

 

Thank goodness for predictability, though.  She hit the doors of the library at a full cruising speed and there he was, standing at his desk glancing over a book.  Probably completely unrelated to what he’d been asking her for.  He looked up from his work, startled by her sudden, purposeful entrance.

 

“Look,” she said, before suddenly realizing that she had absolutely no idea what to say.  Feeling somewhat stupid as he stared at her, wide-eyed, Ace forged on.  “There’s something off, and I think we’d best talk it over before we save the world.”  That was vague enough.  If he knew, then _he_ could bring the subject up.  If not, she would know in a few seconds and then could come up with a new topic.

 

He set down his book.  “All right.”  He looked around, and then said, “I’d offer you some tea, but you’ve already had some.” 

 

What?  There was something in his tone . . . something definitely subtextual in that statement.  Was he berating her for having _tea_ with another man?  Ace couldn’t quite work it out.  His tone had been snippy, even though his expression was perfectly neutral.  Maybe he was trying to be as careful about this as she was.  Nevertheless, her emotions grabbed the implied castigation and ran with it.

 

“Oh, please.  One friendly cup of tea doesn’t mean I’m interested in Terrin!”

 

His eyes narrowed.  “I never thought you were.”

 

She had gone this far, and now she had to know.  She took a quick breath and then said, “Well, you certainly flounced out of there like you thought I was.”

 

The Doctor put his hands behind his back and said, “I left because you two seemed to be having a nice and potentially useful chat, and I think I intimidate Terrin somewhat.”

 

“You—oh.”    He _didn’t_ know.  He was just being the Doctor, and she was overreacting.  She’d assumed that because this thing between them had been on her mind, it had also been on his.  Which was stupid.  Hell wasn’t about to freeze over.  It never would; it was Hell!  Which was pretty much where she found herself right now . . .

 

Because there it was.  Unequivocal.  A Time Lord wasn’t about to change his habits after nearly a millennium of obliviousness for the sake of some human woman; someone with the equivalent lifespan of the average gadfly.  Even if she wasn’t run-of-the-mill. 

 

It would never happen.

 

So, okay, fair enough.  If he hadn’t worked it out, she wasn’t going to spout off some grand declaration of undying—and unrequited—love.  She breathed deeply and made her expression as neutral as she could. 

 

“Right, then.  I’ll just go and get my kit together, yeah?”  She turned to leave, mustering what was left of her dignity.

 

Only the Doctor—who never did know when to leave well enough alone—stopped her.  She had scarcely taken a step when she felt his hand on her arm, turning her back to face him.  “Ace,” he said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice.

 

So he wasn’t completely oblivious.  That pleading tone, and the slightly lost look in his eyes was enough to tell her that he knew _something_ was off.  But he couldn’t know exactly what was going on, because if he did, he certainly wouldn’t be standing there practically asking _her_ for an explanation.  He never asked for explanations.  He hated admitting ignorance on any topic.

 

It was too bad that she couldn’t oblige him.  “Sorry, Professor,” she said.  “Got confused there for a second.  Thought we had a problem that doesn’t exist.”

 

His eyes narrowed, and she knew her attempt to drop the subject hadn’t been nearly skilled enough.  The Doctor was many things, but he’d never been slow.  He could see a strategic feint at fifty paces, and Ace’s feint hadn’t even been that good.  Why was it that he was the only person in the universe to whom she couldn’t tell a convincing lie?

 

She had to come up with something better and _now_, or he’d pester her until she told.  And that was the one thing she could not allow to happen.  Maybe she’d been ready to confront the issue head-on while she was walking to the library, but that was when she’d had a glimmer of hope: the one she’d ignored for years but had always been there.  Now things were undeniable.  There was no longer any reason to lay bare her soul, as he would never reciprocate.  At least not in a way she wanted to hear.  Maybe it made her a coward, but she decided that in present circumstances, confronting the issue would only exacerbate her situation rather than resolve it.

 

“Look,” she said, her voice low and serious.  “We’re wasting time, and we’ve got a world to save.  Now, what I thought . . . well, I was wrong about it, which makes it completely irrelevant.  So we don’t have a problem here.  Our problem’s out there, and it’s ready to crack this world like an egg.  So let’s get to work, all right?” 

 

She considered bringing up their argument on the beach, at least attempting to get some sort of apology out of him for his behavior, but she was too worried she’d just say something stupid at this point.  Never mind all the logical reasons why his accusations had been unfounded; she’d probably just accuse him of thinking she was still seventeen and thoroughly self-absorbed.  Maybe even demand to know what would have happened if their situations had been reversed.  Wouldn’t he have done the exact same thing?

 

“I’m going to head to my lab and get my kit together,” she repeated.  “You do what you need to do, then meet me in the control room so we can let Terrin and Meeka know they’ll be sitting this one out.”  She thought back to the discussion she’d had with Terrin.  “If they haven’t guessed as much already.”

 

This time, when she turned to go, her arm slipped from his grasp without effort.  He’d conceded this round to her.

 

She twisted through the corridors of the TARDIS, passing—with a burgeoning sense of familiarity—the study, the cloisters, and the swimming pool.  When she opened the next door to present itself and found herself facing the mountains, she rolled her eyes and said, “Very funny,” to the ceiling.  She walked on.  A further half-dozen junk rooms were apparently necessary before she was allowed to reach her destination.  The ship had to be doing it on purpose.  Was the TARDIS irritated with her, or just in a playful mood?

 

The door to her lab opened obligingly enough, though, and the room seemed completely unaltered.  It was a bit of a mess, she’d be the first to admit.  The countertops were all covered with bottles of various chemicals, though all those were sealed tightly.  She knew better than most what happened when some of these things got mixed.  That was why she had the containment closet.  It was there to store her most volatile materials.

 

She went over to its heavy yellow doors and twisted the handle of the over-lock.  It groaned a little.  When she pulled, the door stuck a bit, but with a little extra effort it swung out to reveal her prized collection.

 

They were explosives of course.  Various sizes, from micro-charges to big, bulky monstrosities for those occasions when you didn’t really care who saw you doing it, but you just had to blow something up proper.

 

And of course there was nitro-nine.  Her stock-in-trade.  She’d stopped packing it in deodorant cans years ago when she ceased being able to readily obtain said cans.  Luckily there seemed to be spare pressurized cans all over the TARDIS, so every now and then she just had to go on a hunt to refill her stock.

 

She grabbed a few of the long, slender cans of nitro, as well as two micro-charges, two chemical grenades, and—after recalling the incident with the creature that had invaded the Doctor—two sonic grenades.  Just in case sheer explosive force wasn’t going to be enough to get the job done.

 

Then she left the closet with her prizes and slipped into a carry-vest she’d picked up in the thirty-fifth century.  It would have looked like a man’s skirted waistcoat from the 1600s if it wasn’t for the matte, army-green color and the multitude of pockets.  The pockets came in sets of size, each designed for a different type of explosive.  Each also had its own electromagnetic containment unit to protect her in case one of the charges should go off accidentally. 

 

Each explosive she’d picked out went into its designated pouch.  The micro-charges went into her breast pockets, the two chem-grenades and two sonic grenades lined her ribs, and the long, large pockets on the skirting around her waist were filled one by one with nitro.  Eight pockets, four on each side in all, so that was how many cans she packed.  Better safe than dead meat.

 

She pushed the door of the containment closet closed against its creaked protests.  Finally the handle latched and she turned to finish her work.  The last items she picked up were from the drawers she’d designated to store her ever-expanding collection of weapons.  There was a pocket-sheath on her vest which was perfectly formed for the poly-carbide _kukri_ she’d picked up in a bazaar on Titian III.  On the other side of the vest, there was a similar pocket-holster for her modified blaster.  It was small and crescent-shaped, but it packed more punch than most large carbines.

 

Ace was ready.  In fact, if the situation came to an all-out war between an entire invading army and the two of them, she was ready.  She’d never been formally trained as a soldier, but that was what she had become.  Whenever the Doctor needed her to be soldierly, anyway.  She slipped the blaster into its holster and headed out.  It was time they were on their way.

 

This time the TARDIS led her directly to the control room.  She couldn’t have passed three other rooms before she found herself face to face with a surprised Terrin.  Standing nearby was the Doctor, his expression betraying that familiar reticence reserved for moments when she armed herself to the teeth. 

 

“Where’s Meeka?” she asked.

 

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed.  “She’s not with you?”

 

Ace gestured around her to indicate the lack of Meeka.

 

“Where could she have got to?” Terrin asked.

 

“She must have gone wandering,” Ace said, inspiration striking.  “Look, Terrin, the Doctor and I can’t wait here and look for her, but she could be lost.  She could be scared.  You have to stay here and find her.”

 

“But—”

 

Ace put some snap into her tone.  “Look, mate, she’s your responsibility.  She’s in this because you felt like you had to come with us, and now she could be lost.  You have to step up, Terrin.  You need to find her.”

 

Terrin bowed his head.  “Of course,” he whispered, “you’re right.  Silly of me to forget.”

 

Ace put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.  She wondered if this was what the Doctor felt like: sorry she had to manipulate him like this, but not sorry enough to stop.  “You’re a good man,” she said, putting real feeling behind her words.

 

Terrin nodded then shuffled off towards the rest of the TARDIS.  He didn’t look enthused, but he did look duty-bound, which was good enough for Ace.

 

As the door slid closed behind him, Ace turned to see the Doctor giving her an appraising look.  “Very good,” he said.

 

She shrugged, uncomfortable with the situation and her role therein.  He thought he had a monopoly on subtle methods of persuasion?  Really.  Just because she preferred high-powered explosives to conversation most of the time didn’t mean that she wasn’t able to manipulate people.  She’d lived with him for twelve years, after all.

 

She headed for the doors, which swung open as she approached, presumably because the Doctor toggled them before joining her.  The surf was still choppy, and the moonlight painted the purple sea green at the crests.  It was lovely in that Romantic-era horror story way.

 

She didn’t wait for the Doctor.  She stepped through the doors and drew her blaster, scanning the area before she allowed herself to move from in front of the only exit from the TARDIS. 

 

With nothing apparent that was poised to tear her to shreds, she could only gesture for the Doctor to join her.  Time to get started on locating the source of this planet’s problems.  He arrived at her side with his hat on his head and his umbrella plucked from the hat-stand.  He held his sonic screwdriver loosely in his other hand.

 

“You never bring that thing with you,” she said.

 

“Not without reason, no.  I’ve got reason this time.”  He pressed a button and the screwdriver emitted the same harmonics she’d heard from Meeka’s recording.  “I’ve scanned it into the screwdriver, which is now amplifying the sound waves and stressing the sub-bass.  If I’m not very much mistaken, this should . . .”

 

Just then, a patch of bioluminescence far out to sea caught Ace’s eye.  The Doctor faltered to a stop as they both watched. The patch grew until it seemed large even from the distance at which she was standing.

 

“What . . ?” Ace whispered.  The Doctor, standing at her side, touched her arm lightly.  Without thinking, she moved that arm and took his hand in hers.

 

The bioluminescence scattered as a huge, lumpy, silver creature broke the surface.  Its dorsal fin hugged close to its back, while lateral fins that looked more like great wings flapped up over its body, catching the wind and flinging off a fountain of glowing water.  It was the same sort of fish she’d seen in the stained glass windows at the ball, but so much larger than she’d imagined.

 

It started singing, its tones intertwining with those produced by the screwdriver.  The mechanically reproduced sound didn’t hold a candle to the actual song of the great fish: haunting tones, complex and layered and breath-stealing.

 

“It’s like radio emissions from a gas giant,” the Doctor whispered, switching off his sonic screwdriver’s pale imitation.  Ace thought it sounded like an electronic symphony accompanied by loons.

 

Another fish surfaced, then another and another.  Each joined in the song, creating eerie strata of sound that shivered beneath Ace’s skin.  She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes and had no idea why.

 

“Come on,” the Doctor said, and she knew it was time to go.  They continued on their way, accompanied by the chorus of the fish.  If they weren’t facing a soon-to-be-apocalypse, it would have been the most romantic moment of her life.  Except it wasn’t, because this thing between the Doctor and her wasn’t allowed to be romantic.

 

She didn’t let go of his hand.


	9. Close Calls and Confrontations

The crash of the surf and the song of the great fish made the beach feel like an entirely different world to that of the city.  She was usually up for any sort of adventure, no matter how dangerous, but there was something about the buildings and streets that told her to stay away as long as possible.  Thankfully, the Doctor seemed to agree, and they walked near the surf.  The darkness in the city seemed to end where the paving did, and didn’t venture any further.

 

She might have been wrong, but Ace felt as though the beach was protected, almost sanctified by the song of the great fish.  She wasn’t the only one.  As they moved around the outcropping of rock that separated their landing site from the rest of the beach, she and the Doctor saw huddles of people on the sands.  Farther along, the huddles became large groups clustered together, their blue hair bright in the moonlight.  They all stood near the water, several getting wet every time a wave came in, but none seemed to mind.  They were clinging to the fish-song and the protection it seemed to offer.

 

Many cried.  Some talked in excited, low voices to one another, while others stood in mute shock.  Their world was tearing itself apart.  Everything that made sense was melting away, and the only place reality retained a strong grip seemed to be on the beach.  Many of the city-dwellers had therefore congregated here. 

 

Not all of them, though.  Even an eyeball estimate told Ace that there weren’t nearly enough people on the beach to constitute the entire population.  Of the missing, there was no sign.  The looming city was utterly silent.

 

Ace and the Doctor wove their way between the clumps of people.  The majority gave the strange outsiders glances of anger or suspicion, but a few stared at them with such desperate hope in their eyes that Ace had to turn her head, because truth be told she didn’t have the first clue how they were going to save this world.  She wasn’t sure the Doctor knew, either.  She wasn’t used to doubting him like that.  She didn’t like the feeling.

 

He’d been studying a small device for some time now.  He’d produced it from a pocket.  Unfolded it resembled three marshmallows on a stick with little flashing lights everywhere.  He never glanced up from his instrument once he had produced it, but he steered his way amongst the population with unerring accuracy nevertheless.  Ace followed, his mute shadow until he chose a course of action. 

 

And then he stopped, narrowed his eyes at the readings he was getting, swung the stick in a slow arc, and finally stopped with it pointing dead into the city.  Ace didn’t need instructions.  Shadow no longer, she took the lead in the direction he’d aimed.  As they broke past the last fringes of the populace, Ace felt someone catch her sleeve.  She turned to see an old woman clutching at her.  The woman whispered, “Oh, no.  Please don’t go.  Not you.  Not a young thing like you.”

 

The way she was peering at Ace, it was almost as though she were seeing someone else.  Ace gently detached the fingers from her arm and said, “Got a job to do.  I’ll take care of it.”

 

The woman turned away, still murmuring pleas not to go.  Ace looked to the Doctor, and he returned her gaze steadily.  Somewhere in those gray depths, she knew he was thinking the same thing the old woman was.  That was really his problem: he was desperate for the company of another person, but he wanted to bundle her off as soon as the going got rough.  It hadn’t always been like that, of course; years ago he hadn’t been nearly so protective.  She’d always had the unpleasant suspicion that his shift in attitude had been a result of assessing her competence and finding it lacking.  He’d started off trusting her with quite a bit, then grown dissatisfied with her ability to take care of herself and ended up with this barely-repressed urge to wrap her up in cotton wool.  It was infuriating.  She was fairly sure she’d never given him reason to doubt her.

 

No time like the present to show him exactly how competent she was.  Ace slipped her blaster from its holster, held it loosely in one hand, and took the lead again.  There wasn’t a single thing he could do or say that would stop her going with him.  He could knock her out, tie her up and leave her behind, and a half-hour later she’d find him, give him a right cross for what he’d done, and then be right by his side ready to defend him from anything the universe had to offer.

 

Sand turned to paving under her feet, and she felt the immediate unease in the air.  She wasn’t protected anymore, and something told her the darkness _knew_ she was still alive and whole.  And it wasn’t pleased.

 

She heard the soft pad of footsteps behind her, the rhythm telling her it was the Doctor.  She slowed to the point that they were within touching distance before proceeding.  His hand brushed her arm and then rested there, butterfly light.  They continued on, that single point of contact doing more for her confidence than anything else could have.  This way, she knew exactly where he was.  And she would feel it the second he wasn’t by her side.

 

The streets were deserted.  Several lampposts hung askew or had been knocked over, so there were large pools of darkness into which Ace couldn’t see.  She dredged up the cheetah virus, feeling the slight pinch of her teeth going sharp.  Her eyesight heightened and she peered into the blackness, straining to see what was hidden.

 

And there was still nothing.  No alleys, no buildings, no lurking threats.  She just . . . couldn’t see anything but a mass of impenetrable darkness.  It didn’t make sense!  She heard herself growl in frustration, the timbre particular to this state, like the teeth or the golden eyes.  The animal in her was frightened, and she was worried.  No night vision meant that she was completely vulnerable, that she couldn’t protect the Doctor.

 

“It’s not shadow,” the Doctor said by her side.  Ace willed the virus back down and her sight became the human wash of muted colors.

 

“I can’t see into it,” she said.  “Not me or the cheetah.”

 

“That’s because what you’re looking for isn’t there.  Watch.”  He tucked the handle of his brolly into his pocket, then pulled the sonic screwdriver from another pocket, switched it to emit only light and shone it into the darkness.  Nothing.  Even the light was consumed.

 

“What is that?” she asked.

 

“A rift in time and space,” he said.

 

Ace surveyed the situation.  At the moment, the rift wasn’t moving, at least.  But that could change, and that would present a whole new set of problems.  “Any way of fighting a rift?” she asked.

 

“Can you fight gravity?  Or time?”

 

She raised a half-irritated, half-amused eyebrow and said, “Yes.”

 

“Ah, but only with the right technology.  And to neutralize a rift—well, we don’t have the means.  There aren’t many who do.”

 

“Any chance of one of the few popping in to help?”

 

“Gods generally don’t take requests.  Or work to other people’s timetables.”

 

“What?”

 

“A story for a different time.  For now, the best I can suggest is to watch your step.  If those rifts lead to where I think they do, it’s not a place either of us want to be.”

 

“Right.”  Ace glanced at her companion and allowed a tiny smile to quirk her lips.  “Got another torch on you by any chance?”

 

He gave a slight, worried frown.  “I’m afraid I only thought to bring my sonic screwdriver.”

 

“Then I guess I’ll just stay close, won’t I?” she murmured.

 

He didn’t respond, but his light touch turned into a proffered arm.  Ace might have laughed if she didn’t think the sound would bring every creature in the city down on them.  Honestly, though, he was genteel at the strangest times.

 

They crept through the streets.  The sonic screwdriver’s blue light illuminated some pools of dark and was consumed by others.  Ace started to view it as something of a canary in a coalmine.  Any place the light couldn’t penetrate was to be avoided.

 

For a long while they wandered the streets without incident, though the lack of action was, for Ace, even worse than a fight.  At least in a fight she knew where the enemy was.  With this all-pervading sense of gloom surrounding them, she knew they could be attacked at any minute and from any direction.

 

The Doctor, as usual, seemed unconcerned.  He simply aimed his marshmallow-device at the ground.  He frowned then and fiddled with a few miniscule knobs.  He aimed it at the ground again.

 

Something moved in the nearest shadow.  Ace saw it flicker out the corner of her eye and turned immediately.  She held her ground, scanning.  There was nothing there but black.  “Professor,” she called over her shoulder, “you might want to get a move on.  I think the Shadowmen know where we are.”

 

He hummed his acknowledgement and his device gave a soft bleep.  Footsteps told her he was probably moving around, trying to find some elusive spot.  “Stay close,” she hissed, hating that he could get so distracted he’d go wandering and leaving her back exposed.  She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was only a few feet away, eyes still locked on that device of his.

 

“Yes, of course,” he muttered, though whether in answer to her demand or in answer to some question in his head was anyone’s guess.

 

“Doctor . . .” she growled.  She couldn’t stand here staring at him while there were threats present!  Honestly, he came over all worried about her well-being, but give him a mystery or a gadget to fiddle with, and he forgot all about her.  And his own safety, come to that.  Ace gritted her teeth and reluctantly turned back to the darkness.  She tried to keep an eye on the immediate vicinity in as many directions as possible, while using her ears to keep track of the Doctor’s position.

 

“Aha!” he said.

 

“Progress?”

 

A few more footsteps, damn him.  Still, she retained a sense of his location.  She itched to turn and make sure, but the suggestion of movement was all around her, just beyond her field of vision.  Turning would likely give the darkness the opportunity it wanted.  Damn it, she felt like that bloke coming out of the underworld.  The one who couldn’t turn around because if he did then bad things would happen . . .

 

The Doctor’s words, when they came, were oblivious to her discomfort.  “I’ve detected the residual charge from the energy drain.”

 

Ace frowned, her eyes scanning the darkness.  If she could just pinpoint the source of the flickers in her vision . . .  “Isn’t that what we were doing already?”

 

“Yes.  But I’ve homed in now.  We’re nearly calibrated to trace the source.”

 

“Good.  Could we take that ‘nearly’ and exchange it for a ‘definitely’?  Fast?”

 

“Almost there . . .”

 

Ace saw more movement in the periphery of her vision.  She turned her head to confront it, but it was gone.  She took a firmer grip on her blaster, dismayed to note that her palms were clammy.  Her eyes couldn’t cover enough of the blackness at once, and if the incident in the hotel hallway was anything to go on, the Shadowmen seemed at home just beyond direct sight.

 

“Doctor,” she warned.

 

“Hold on a minute.”

 

“We don’t really have a—”

 

“Got it!” 

 

Ace backed up until she was within touching distance.  She could feel him at her back.  “Let’s get moving,” she said.

 

His voice came from off to her right.  “Are you coming?”

 

Ace’s eyes widened.  If the Doctor wasn’t the presence behind her, then—she whirled to face a man with blank, white eyes. 

 

She gasped, but her hands weren’t affected by the shock that hit her brain.  They tightened on the blaster in her hand.  The man’s slack jaw fell open in the same horrible O as the woman in the shack.  Ace brought up her weapon.

 

The man lunged, his face so close to hers that she felt the moisture on her lips freeze.  There was nothing for it.  Kill or be killed, and she was very close to the second option.  Somewhere in the background she heard the Doctor shout, “Ace!”

 

Ace squeezed the trigger, aiming up as best she could.  For a crazy moment she was sure she’d missed, because he was still there, and in the next second or two she was going to be invaded.  But then the man’s body fell heavily away from her.  Ace reeled a few steps before catching her balance.  She stood, staring at the hole burned through his neck and out the back of his head.  She could see the flagstones of the street through it, but no blood.  The man had no blood.  His mouth continued to work slowly, and his white eyes were still focused on her.  The blast she’d delivered had vaporized his throat, brain stem—most of his brain, come to that.  She’d severed his spinal cord, paralyzing everything from the neck down.  She must have damaged all his autonomic functions beyond repair.  And still the thing inside him was keeping him animated, if helpless. 

 

She stepped back, not wanting to see this.   There was something sad and terrible about a man that badly injured not being allowed to die.  She also worried that the parasite would come oozing out of that hole to deal with her directly.  She handled the blaster well enough, but she couldn’t be confident that she’d have the speed and accuracy necessary to deal with the smaller target.  Or that blaster-fire would be at all effective against something like that.

 

Hands seized her from behind and whirled her around.  Ace brought the blaster up in an instinctive move, but stopped at the sight of stormy gray eyes.  It was the Doctor.  “_Shit_!” she exploded, unsure whether she was more panicked by the sense of danger or the idea that she’d almost shot the Doctor in the head.  She forced herself to breathe deeply.  “Shit,” she repeated with a little less vehemence.  One more breath and she was able to meet his eyes.  “Nice work watching my back,” she couldn’t help but snipe.

 

She might have said something more, but her words died in her throat when she studied his expression.  He was stricken.  He knew it was all his fault.  He knew he’d put her in danger by getting distracted and wandering off.  In fact, he was as close to frantic as he ever seemed to let himself get.  He undid the top three buttons of Ace’s shirt before she could ask what he thought he was doing.  It all became clear when he pulled the collar away from her neck and shoulders, checking every possible entry point for the telltale ring of ice. 

 

Ace tried to ignore the fingers running over the sensitive skin of her throat, but her voice was still a bit hoarse when she said, “You know, if I’d been got by that thing, I wouldn’t have shot him.”

 

“Better safe than sorry,” he said as his fingers perused the top of her collarbone.

 

“And if I had been got, there isn’t much you’d be able to do, anyway,” she went on, as though nothing were wrong.  Because there wasn’t.  Obviously.

 

“_I_ survived an attack.”

 

And that, combined with his colossal lack of caution a second ago, was enough for Ace to overcome her surprise at his horror.  Of course he wanted to patch things up now.  This was always the sort of thing that came after he screwed up royally.  “Yeah, I remember,” she said, putting enough bite in her tone to make him stop momentarily.  “Bit my head off afterwards, too, as I recall.”

 

He had the gall to look confused.  “I was only pointing out—”

 

“Perspective, I know.  Utter bullshit, Professor.  When it comes to a choice between you and me, perspective has never been the thing I lack.  The universe needs you.”

 

He looked up at this, even as his fingers were still splayed out against her neckline.  “And you never stopped to consider that maybe I need _you_?”

 

Ace swallowed.  That was too near the knuckle, so she feigned lightness and said, “Don’t go all mushy on me, even if you are enjoying a bit of a grope.”  That comment made the Doctor remember himself and he reclaimed his hands.  “Fine,” she said.  “I forgive you for biting my head off.  You were worried.  You get a pass.  The point I was trying to make was that I doubt I’d have survived being invaded by one of those things the way you did.”

 

He nodded, conceding the point.  “Yes, well, on that note . . .”  He reached up and brushed his thumb against the corner of her mouth.  “You’ve got a bit of frost.”

 

Now she was holding her breath.  Her throat was one thing, tricky enough to deal with, but now his fingers were tracing her lips.  It was so unbearably intimate that her higher brain functions were on the verge of complete shutdown.

 

He pulled out a handkerchief with the hand not currently swiping across her lower lip.  The movement dislodged his umbrella, which fell from its precarious dangle from his pocket to the ground.  He ignored it, instead brought the cloth up to her face and then blinked.  “Oh,” he said, sounding taken aback.  “Well, I’m sure you can do the rest.”  He drew away and handed her the handkerchief with no small amount of awkwardness.  Ace’s brain heaved a sigh of relief, even while her skin was demanding that he get his hands back there right now . . .

 

The Doctor bent down, picked up his brolly and this time hung it over the wrist of the hand currently holding his sonic screwdriver.  He turned away and pointed his device at the ground.  It chirped again and he started walking.  Ace trailed after him, still wiping at her mouth until she realised what she was doing and stuffed the hankie irritably into a pocket.  She kept her blaster palmed; they were currently vulnerable and misplaced erotic thoughts were not going to keep either of them safe.  _'The job,' _she thought to herself, the words quickly becoming a mantra.  _'The job the job the job...' _ But it was difficult, because the moonlight was catching in his hair and she wanted him so badly she could hardly breathe.  _'Shut up.  The job.  The job the job...'  _Distractions like this were likely to get them both killed.

 

A few minutes spend walking, keeping her mind firmly on the task in hand, calmed her down.  She was so certain she was calm that when the Doctor's device squealed a little more loudly than it had been doing, she was dismayed to feel herself jump.  Even worse, the Doctor noticed and shot her an apologetic look.  He tweaked something on the device: probably the volume control.

 

“Just as I thought,” the Doctor muttered.  “They’re drawing from multiple sources.”

 

Hadn’t that been _her_ idea?  She was pretty sure it had been.  Still, she wasn’t about to call him on a bit of minor creative usurpation.  That would lead to an argument, which would lead to more emotional confrontation, and she’d already exhausted her capacity.  So she nodded and clarified, “Buildings all over town?”

 

“Mmm,” he confirmed.  Then he frowned, stopped walking, backed up and sighed in relief.  He looked up and around, even as Ace scanned the street in either direction for hostiles.  When she was satisfied that there was no immediate threat, she finally risked looking at the Doctor.  He still stood in place, studying a building to his right.  A house.

 

She followed his gaze to regard the façade.  It was made of the same attractive green agate that comprised most of the local architecture.  Ace drew closer to the Doctor.  “You think that’s where the power’s going?” she asked.

 

He shrugged, noncommittal.  “It goes through there, at least.”

 

“Which means we go through there too,” she said.

 

“Correct.”

 

Ace nodded and took point.  “Right,” she said, “stay behind me.”

 

She glided forward without waiting for a response, because her strategy wasn't open for debate.  His soft footsteps followed after a moment's hesitation, and she checked over her shoulder to be sure he hadn't used that pause to get distracted again or turn into a slack-jawed zombie.  Everything was fine; thank God.  She didn't have the energy to deal with another one just yet.

 

They ascended the steps.  The Doctor drew close, his physical presence reassuring in this world of hollow rifts and hollow people.  They stopped before the building's large front door.

 

She took a deep breath and turned back to the Doctor.  “You ready for this?” she asked.

 

“Am I ever not?”

 

“Do you want me to answer that?”

 

He smirked and she grinned.  For a moment the tension and confusion were gone, and only their friendship blazed through.  He must have felt it too, because he reached to tap her nose, a gesture she hadn’t realized she’d missed so much until that very moment.  Ace responded with a squeeze to his shoulder.  This was good.  This was great.  They were finally back to normal.  All was right with the world.  All but the fact that said world was falling apart around their ears and she had no clue how to save it, that was.

 

Except . . . she wasn’t letting his shoulder go, and he’d noticed.  He noticed before _she_ did, in fact, because it was his questioning glance which pointed out her lapse.  She snatched back her hand, feeling a guilty flush heat her cheeks.  This was ridiculous.  She was taking mundane moments—or more than that, _dangerous_ moments—and translating them into charged and meaningful exchanges.  Precisely three seconds before, she’d been congratulating herself on shrugging off the tension, and here she was, analyzing how long she’d left her hand on his shoulder.  It was stupid and schoolgirlish, not to mention incredibly reckless.  Her job was to protect him.  And if she didn’t pull herself together sharpish, she’d get one or both of them killed.

 

The Doctor was looking at her, more intrigued than confused.  He was waiting for her to explain.  Not that she was about to.  She shuttered her expression and whispered, "It's nothing."

 

“Ace—”

 

"It's nothing!" she said, almost too insistently.  "Let's move."  She turned away, hoping this would convince the Doctor to drop it.

 

But of course he reached out and took her arm, tugging gently like this was a question he really wanted answering.  Ace felt panic stab through her as she was turned to face him.  As terrifying as it seemed, she was _this _close to coming clean: telling him or showing him or doing something.  Something irrevocable.  Something that would finally succeed in driving them apart, after they'd survived all the monsters and the lies and even the teenaged petulance.

 

“Don’t,” she managed to rasp.

 

He shook his head.  “You shouldn’t feel the need to hide things from me.”

 

“Oh, but I should,” she said, trying to sound wryly amused, even though she’d never felt less like laughing.  She was trembling as she turned away from him.  She needed to focus on something else, anything to get her mind off all the delicious ways she could answer.

 

So she grasped the door handle and pulled.  Nothing.  She growled and pulled harder.  This heavy front door had turned into her escape route from their dangerous conversation, and it wasn’t playing along.  She looked down the street wildly, first one way and then the other, trying to work out how to get to the back of the building.  Maybe there was an alleyway . . . but no, there was nothing she could see.  They were either going through this door or they would spend ten minutes—maybe more—looking for another way in, one that could well be locked up as tightly as this one.  Seemed senseless.  And there was no point in respecting property when the future of this world was hanging in the balance.  Ace made a decision and reached for a can of nitro.

 

The Doctor chose that moment to put a hand on her shoulder.  She shrugged his hand off, intent on her plan to blow this door open, but he grasped her wrist, preventing her.  Anger and panic surged within her again, causing her to whirl around to face him again.  He held her gaze steadily, not reacting to the anger she practically blazed with.  He wasn’t to know that she clung to that anger in the hope that it masked anything else she might be feeling.  After a few seconds he squeezed her hand, reached past her, and rapped on the door with his umbrella handle.

 

She let out an explosive breath, and with it much of her fury.  “You’re knocking?” she asked, bemused.

 

“It seemed a prudent precaution before you blew up the door.  There could be people hiding on the other side.”

 

“People who think we’re zombies now,” she said, remembering the knocking at the hotel and the fisherman’s hut.

 

“Infovores,” the Doctor said.

 

“What?”

 

“‘Zombies’ is a generic term that doesn’t begin to describe this particular life form.  They absorb information and relay it back to the Shadowmen.  Therefore, ‘infovore’ is much more accurate.”

 

He argued semantics at the most inappropriate times . . .  “Fine,” she said.  “They think we’re much-more-aptly-named-than-zombies _infovores_.”

 

“Good point,” he said.  He knocked again, this time making a jaunty rhythm.  “Anyway, I don’t think the infovores are this chatty.”

 

She forced herself to look away and relax.  “What do we do now?” she asked.  “Just wait for someone to get the door?”

 

“At least give them a chance to respond.”

 

She didn’t like the idea of standing here and doing nothing.  “How long?” she asked, trying not to hear the echoes of impatient kids in the back seats of cars in her question. 

 

“A couple of minutes.  They might be trying to get to a window so they can see who’s out here.”

 

“Shame this planet doesn’t go for letterboxes.  We could yell through.”

 

He didn’t reply.  A few seconds later she felt her hand taken again.  The gesture made her shiver with panic; it made her cold.  Weird that the Doctor could do that to her.  Usually he had the opposite effect.

 

“It would seem to me,” he said, “that a moment of relative calm could well be the best time to discuss something . . . something which seems to have been weighing on you.”

 

“Out in the open where anything can find us?”  Her retort was sharp and defensive, even though she’d been going for mild.

 

He remained annoyingly reasonable.  “Out in the open where we’ll see it coming.”

 

She looked at her feet and muttered, "Look, trust me when I say I don't want to discuss it."

 

"Ace-"

 

"And for that matter, _you _don't want me discussing it either."

 

“Evasion?” he countered.  “Really, Ace, you’re talking to a master.  How can I agree with you if I don’t know what ‘it’ is?”

 

She pointed at him.  “That’s circular logic.”

 

“You’ve never concerned yourself too much with logic.”

 

“Maybe I started when I realized I was living with a man who practically feeds off it.”

 

He grinned.  “So I’m rubbing off on you?”

 

Unfortunate choice of words, given her current mood.  Ace felt herself go from the cold grip of panic to the hot flush of embarrassment.  She must have blushed, because he looked over her face, frowning with bewilderment.  Well, let him frown.  She wasn’t about to explain the innuendo to him.  She held his gaze out of some residual sense of defiance now, nothing more. 

 

And the Doctor’s frown suddenly morphed into awareness.  His mouth rounded into an ‘oh!’ of surprise, and Ace was even convinced that she was seeing a darker tinge to his cheeks.  He coughed, almost theatrically.  “You’re not—” he started to say, but she cut him off.

 

“Just drop it,” she snapped, her panic back.

 

“Oh, Ace, really—”

 

“I said drop it!  God, you can never do what you’re asked, can you?  No, you’ve got to poke and prod and satisfy your damned curiosity.”

 

“Ace!”

 

“I mean it!  Once, just once, can’t you just _mind your own bloody business_?!”

 

The Doctor was startled into silence.  He stood there, looking wounded.  For a moment all Ace could hear was the hammer of her heartbeat.  She’d actually shouted in his face.  Never mind that they were in a city populated by infovore-possessed zombies who might well tune in on random shrieking females.  Never mind that they were trying to get into a house that might, if they were very lucky, be occupied by terrified non-possessed people who’d take one look at said shrieking female on the doorstep and add a few more articles of furniture to the barricade within.  Never mind that the Doctor had only been showing concern, and was already out on a limb trying to talk to her about something that was bothering her.  Never mind that the longer he looked at her like that, all concern and hurt and confusion and need . . .

 


	10. The Quantification of Love

The first thing the Doctor did was drop his brolly.  The clatter didn’t seem to distract Ace, whose mouth was now glued to his.  So the second thing he did was wait.  Ace wasn’t pulling back.  He wondered about doing so himself, but intuitively knew that such an action would be unforgivable in this set of circumstances.  And it wasn’t all that unpleasant, in fact, her mouth pressed to his.  Even with so much anger behind it. 

 

Actually, it seemed that the anger was lessening somewhat, because Ace’s lips were softening against his, moving a little, and she was slipping an arm around his waist.  Her hand settled in the small of his back.  She pressed flush up against him, as close as they’d been during the dance which was likely the cause of all this subsequent confusion.  He felt he should also be doing something with his hands, and had a vague notion to touch her arm, her face.  Ace was clearly more well-versed in this sort of thing than he was, because her hand moved from his tie, up his neck and into his hair all in one smooth gesture.  He tried to focus on her expression, to gather information and use that data to formulate the correct response, but all he could read from her too-near face was that her eyes were closed.

 

She broke away and leaned back.  The Doctor stared at her, aware that he looked very perplexed.  Ace said, “So that’s it, then.  That’s the secret I’ve been keeping from you.  Now drop it.”

 

She turned away from him and looked back toward the door.  She tried the doorknob again.  It was, predictably enough, still locked, and there was no indication that their knock had been heard.  The Doctor picked up his brolly and tried to get past his utter bemusement about the events of the last minute or so.  Such a silly argument.  And such an unexpected development.  He spent an instant recalling that kiss; their mouths had been in contact for twenty-three point four seconds.  Was that significant?  From his limited knowledge on the subject, he knew this made it more than a gesture of affection.  It would be handy if there were a chart that plotted time-kissed against meaning-of-kiss.  Though he conceded silently that the number of seconds which had passed was probably not the most important factor involved.

 

Besides, focusing on minutia wasn’t exactly going to center him enough to keep Ace from blowing up the door and abandoning all hope of the element of surprise.  However, it turned out that his intervention was unnecessary.  Instead of reaching for an explosive she pulled out her blaster and fired a single shot into the door, roughly where the bolt met the frame.  A good kick to the wood next to the handle and the door slammed in and clattered against the inner wall.  Ace immediately struck a defensive pose, ready for an attack. 

 

None was forthcoming.  The inside of the house was dark.  Finally given a familiar situation to which he could react, the Doctor shone the light of his sonic screwdriver past her, illuminating patches of space while unable to touch others.  The entire structure seemed replete with rifts.  If they could get through this building at all, it would be slow going . . .

 

And what in blazes was she expecting from him, anyway?  Was he supposed to ignore what she had just done?  It was bad form to kiss someone and then tell them to drop it.  More than bad form, it was cheating.  Probably.  He had no real frame of reference, but it seemed like it should be. 

 

“Ace,” he tried, his tone strained.

 

She sighed.  “Just keep scanning the area, all right?  Let’s move.”  Ace stepped into the house.

 

Fine.  If she wanted to provoke an emotional confrontation and then just walk away, that was just fine.  Statistics favored that it had just been hormones anyway.  Human emotions and hormones had many correlations, statistically speaking, and that seemed particularly true with emotional abnormalities.  The whole unfathomable business had been puzzling him for centuries.  He could mimic human feelings with varying degrees of accuracy, but he always felt he wasn’t getting the full point.  It was as though he felt through a scrim, his emotions muffled and indistinct.  To feel with such acuity was an ability he both envied and pitied his companions.

 

And to be honest, most of the time he was happy not to be bogged down by the myriad emotions that assaulted human beings.  With his lifespan, the idea of feeling everything so strongly for so long was anathema.  But there were moments—moments like this—when he couldn’t understand what was going on in his companion’s head precisely because of that gap.  In these moments he almost wished he could feel as they did.  If he could, then perhaps the divide between them wouldn’t seem so definite or final.

 

But all of that made no difference as Ace clearly wasn’t going to discuss what had happened.  And  that was probably just as well, given the pressing nature of the task in hand.  They’d get this taken care of, they’d go back to the TARDIS, and maybe then they could discuss this properly.  The Doctor tossed a final look both ways down the length of the darkened street and followed Ace into the house.

 

Even in the entrance hallway, it was difficult to avoid the rifts.  It wasn’t long before he’d hung his umbrella from his pocket again to scan the area with the light of his sonic screwdriver.  And even with this help, there were times they passed so close to one that the Doctor could feel the chill of it against his skin.  The further in they went, the more ragged Ace’s breathing became.  The state of reality in the house wasn’t yet as bad as the hotel basement, but it would be.  At least she wasn’t sensitive to fluctuations in the higher dimensions.  The screaming of the universe was out of Ace’s sensory range—mostly.  He envied her that, as well.

 

They stopped at a relatively clear patch of hall a few meters from the door.  Mounted on the wall, just above head-height, was a glass lamp; not presently functioning, of course.  The Doctor angled the beam from his screwdriver towards the lamp, and the refractions lit the hallway more naturally than the torchlight they'd hitherto enjoyed.  He turned to Ace, to see her peering at his face.  He thought she was going to revisit that business on the doorstep, but then he saw that there was no embarrassment mixed in with her concern.

 

She asked, “You all right?”

 

He hesitated a moment and then said, “Time and space are beginning to unravel, and this place is worse than anything since the basement.  It’s like having microphone feedback in my head.”

 

“Anything I can do?”

 

He shook his head, not trusting himself to tell her ‘no’ diplomatically.  It really was a sweet gesture, of course, but it was also entirely irrelevant.  What did she think she _could_ do?  Her options were rather limited and all involved physical contact, which didn't seem like a good idea at present.  She was, in any case, indulging that ridiculous human practice of over-analyzing every gesture, and now she had him doing it too.  Never mind that sometimes the best possible solution to a problem _was_ holding a friend’s hand.  She hadn’t thought about that when throwing her little temper-tantrum outside, though, had she?

 

“You can’t go much further like this,” she said.  “You look like you’re running on fumes as it is.”

 

All these emotional feints and fluctuating concerns for his well being finally got to the Doctor.  He had worried about diplomacy, about not saying anything he might regret, but all that anxiety paled in a flare of irritation.  He managed not to shout, but unfortunately it meant that his words came out with a decided growl when he said, “And you can’t do this on your own!”

 

She lifted her chin and her eyes went steely.  “Course I can.  You clear off back to the beach, I find their lab or whatever they’re using, and then I blow the entire place sky-high.  I brought enough explosives to level the whole street if I have to.”

 

Oh, that was just marvelous.  On top of everything else, she had to decide to press the one button guaranteed to make him angrier.  “And that’s your solution?  Blow it up?”

 

“You’d be surprised how many things that works on.”

 

Her mildness only infuriated him more.  He wasn’t quite sure why he was getting so angry.  Most of the time he managed to limit his reaction to aloof disapproval, when it came to Ace’s more violent habits.  He hypothesized that the screaming feedback in his head might have something to do with it.  “And if there are people here?” he asked.  “Do you blow them up too?”

 

"That depends, doesn't it?  If there's people here I'll try and give them the chance to get clear.  They take that chance, fine.  If not, well - not something I can do much about, is it?"

 

They were toe to toe, glaring at one another.  Ace was breathing hard, and the Doctor was busy trying not to shout.  For an intelligent human with more experience than most, Ace remained stubbornly single-minded when it came to strategy.  Sometimes he wondered if she did this only to provoke him.  She was certainly doing an excellent job of it at that moment. 

 

Her eyes narrowed with challenge, demanding he either back down or make his case.  And her cheeks were flush again, this time without the hormonal flutter of libido but with the sheer vitality of conflict.  Ace never seemed more radiantly alive than when she was in some sort of fight.

 

In that instant, looking at her as she stood her ground, he recognized something else: _he_ felt alive when they did this, too.  He wasn’t sure whether he was more shocked by the idea itself, or by the fact he was thinking it in this of all situations, or by his new helpless fascination with the way she moistened her lips.  He seemed to be having the disorienting problem of noticing the heat rising off her body and hearing the quiet murmur of her pulse.  Why?  Human hormones weren’t contagious.  It wasn’t even as though the kiss she’d offered had been soul-shattering, in the way that human poetry and literature suggested they could be.  This was all nonsense.

 

He needed to step back.  He needed to blink and shut out, if only for a second, this image of her, and with it these . . . impressions.  In his haste, he stepped too far back and a piercing blade of coldness cut into his skin.  He flinched and tried to turn, aware that he needed to react but was unaccountably confused about how to do so.  Thank goodness Ace’s reflexes were sharper.  She sprung, grabbed him by the front of his pullover and jerked him forward and away from danger.  He lost his footing and stumbled.  Both his emissions detector and his sonic screwdriver clattered to the floor as he flailed for a solid surface to steady himself on.  He felt it the second his balance slewed too far to be regained, and he fell.  His umbrella managed to get dislodged from his pocket in his tumble, and struck the stone floor with a crack. 

 

He also, much to his chagrin, managed to bring Ace down with him.  They hit the floor hard, and somewhere between impact and recovery the Doctor found himself lying on top of Ace’s body, her mouth less than an inch from his own.  Her hands moved from his pullover to his face.  He felt a dizzying combination of inevitability and complete bewilderment.  He didn’t know what to do!  No, that wasn’t entirely accurate.  He knew what the situation warranted, but that was certainly not the Gallifreyan thing to do.  It was—

 

It was a kiss.  They were kissing.  Somewhere between his confusion and her touch, their lips had met. The experience definitely was rather pleasant, he decided, with the benefit now of two kisses to compare and contrast.  Not that it wasn't also sudden and a touch awkward, possibly because he was inexpert, possibly because they were lying on a floor aware that one wrong move would send them dangerously close to a rift.  Their noses bumped and he heard Ace murmur frustration.  The sound was enough to bring him back fully to his senses.  He pulled away, as short on breath as she seemed, in spite of the difference in their oxygen requirements.

 

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said, his voice oddly graveled. 

 

Ace just looked at him.  Then she growled, lunged upward and caught him before he could get up.  He opened his mouth to tell her to calm down, think this through, but she’d already initiated another kiss.  She molded the shape of her lips to his own and took the opportunity to kiss him deeply.  Her tongue insisted on getting involved, and urged his to participate as well.  He was somewhat hesitant.  This sort of kiss had always seemed to him the outer limit of human insanity, but experiencing it now, he had to admit that humans might just be on to something.  That, and his tongue had a mind of its own, because permission or not, it responded to Ace’s kiss fervently.

 

How long was it since he’d been kissed this way?  _Had_ he been kissed this way?  He couldn’t remember any instances offhand, and he thought that he would have remembered something like this if it had happened.  This all led him to the inescapable conclusion that he had no idea what to do, and that he was seconds away from freezing up entirely.

 

Ace hummed a note of impatience.  He held still as she put a hand on his cheek and adjusted her angle.  Then, with a suddenly sensual deliberation, she began to kiss him again.  Her lips caressed his slowly, exploring the shape of his mouth, one moment brushing and teasing, the next deeper and sweeter.  Her hand found the place in the small of his back she’d learned the last time she tried this, and it settled there.

 

The shock of sensation was enough to push him past bemusement and into action.  He finally ended up with one arm supporting his weight next to her shoulder while the other hand brushed hesitant fingers along her cheekbone and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  He concentrated on following her lead, on learning what was expected of him.  He suddenly realized that not only had his eyes closed long minutes ago without even a by-your-leave, but that he was enjoying himself.  That, and Ace’s gentle murmurs and sighs of desire weren’t the only sounds filling the air, because he was making rather undignified noises too . . .

 

It was Ace who broke the kiss.  She pulled back, opened her eyes, and frowned up at him.  He’d never seen her look more vulnerable than when she asked, “Okay, so are you just being polite?”

 

This time he was definitely blushing, and his breathing was fast and ragged.  The interlude was over, as interludes always and invariably were.  There were reasons he never did this!  “This can’t end well,” he whispered.

 

“I take it we’re talking about more than being killed as this planet tears itself to bits.”

 

He felt a renewed wash of anger as he snapped, “I’m talking about the fact that I’m nine-hundred-and-fifty years old, and you’re twenty-eight.  I’m talking about the fact that you’re going to age and die, and I won’t.”

 

She actually rolled her eyes at this.  “No offense, Professor, but the same thing would happen if we were just friends.  And it’d still be just as hard.”  She ran her fingers against the skin right above his collar and he had to school himself into not shivering.  “Besides, if that’s your criteria, you’re going to have to go out and find yourself a Time Lady.”

 

The words prompted a face—two faces, actually, given her regeneration—to materialize in his mind’s eye, and he felt a flicker of all the different losses he’d felt before the ball.  Especially the most immediate one: that Ace could dress up like a Time Lady, but she’d never _be_ one.  She could act like Romana and even dress like her, but there was a tangible difference between them.  Romana carried herself with a sense of perpetuity.  She was confident in her own immortality.  Ace, on the other hand, was alive and energized precisely because she only had a short time in this universe.  A very, very short time if you’re a Time Lord who finds himself inexplicably _needing_ her presence to function properly.

 

She must have seen something in his expression.  Clearly, however, it wasn’t everything that he’d been feeling, because she looked chagrined and said, “Oh.”

 

He huffed as he realized she’d taken his silence as an affirmation of her fears.  He sat up.  She did the same.  “I’m not interested in going out and finding someone, thank you very much,” he said.  She had a shifty look about her.  The last time she’d worn that particular expression had been . . . “Is _this_ what you wanted to ask me at the ball?”

 

“Well it seemed logical at the time!  We were having such a good time and I thought, ‘Maybe he likes this Time Lady better than he likes boring old Ace.’”  She shrugged.  “Don’t feel bad if you did.  I would.”

 

“I don’t!  Besides, I already had the chance to take up with a Time Lady, and neither of us were interested.”

 

Ace looked intrigued.  Fortunately she didn’t look jealous.  “Who was she?” she asked.

 

“A companion of mine lifetimes ago.”  His eyes flickered briefly to hers, trying to gauge her reactions.  She was calm, just a bit curious. 

 

“What was her name?”

 

“Romanadvoratrelundar.”

 

She let out a bark of laughter.  “You’re kidding, right?”

 

"No.  We’ve all got names so long we learn not to use them."

 

Her smile was just as joking as his had to be.  “Why?” she asked.  “What happened?”

 

Grinning and feeling rather giddy after so much emotion, he confided, “Several of our people tried to introduce themselves with their full names.  After ten minutes, the locals gave them up for lunatics, ran them through and ate them.”

 

“That is such utter crap!”

 

“Yes, it is.  Utter ‘crap’, as you put it.  But you get the idea.”

 

Ace’s chuckles trickled off, leaving a strange, hopeful expression on her face.  In a voice barely above a breath she asked, “What was your name, then?”

 

He looked away and didn’t say anything.  He didn’t want to see that hope, almost painful in its purity, vanish as she realized he wouldn’t answer.  He busied himself collecting the emissions detector, his umbrella, and his sonic screwdriver, all of which lay well within arm’s reach.

 

Ace’s voice still had the power to make him flinch.  “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

 

“No.”  He glanced at her.  As he had anticipated, her hope was gone, and in its place was weary resignation.  He forced himself to be honest, even though it was the last thing he wanted to be at that moment.  “There are some things I won't ever tell you.  Secrets.  Parts of me you can't reach.  But I’m terribly nosy.  I'll want to know everything about you.  Everything you feel, everything you think, everything that's made you who you are.  It's lopsided, but there it is.  Hardly the basis for a fair and equal relationship.”

 

“You keep talking about reasons why I wouldn’t want this, but I’m not the one hedging here,” she said, poking his arm for emphasis.  He turned his sad eyes on her full force, but she didn’t react so he looked away.  She sighed and then said, “You tell me exactly why _you_ don’t want this and I’ll . . . I’ll drop it.”

 

She was right.  This was the time for honesty.  He’d already acknowledged this; he just had to take it further.  When he met her gaze again, he deliberately dismantled all his deceptions and barriers.  She needed to see that this was as honest as he could ever be; see the endless march of years that was his existence. 

 

“Because in my life, the one constant is that everything ends.  I couldn’t bear to lose you _now_,” he said.  “If we got closer—if we pursued some sort of intimate relationship—I wouldn’t fare well once this ended.  And it would.  By death or something else, this _would_ end, and barring catastrophe, I’ll be the one to survive it.”  He caught her hand in his and stared down at them.  His voice, when he spoke again, was almost too quiet to hear.  “I don’t travel well alone.  I think you’ve figured that out by now.  But this version of me has become shockingly monogamous, and I _would_ travel alone.  I can’t imagine traveling with anyone else now.  Not this me.  And that loneliness is the most terrifying thing I can think of.”

 

Ace pulled back, sharply enough to tell him he’d surprised her.  Maybe even horrified her.  Perhaps she hadn’t been aware of the power she had to damage him.  Why would she be, after all he’d lived through and all the other companions he’d had?  Maybe he hadn’t even realized it himself.

 

“Why me?” she asked, sounding lost.  “Why me and not any of the others?”

 

He reached out and cupped her cheek, and his answer—when it came—was painfully simple.  “Because you’re Ace.  And you stayed.”

 

Her lip trembled, and he wondered if she was about to cry, or maybe even laugh.  What came out in the end was a small, shaking voice that said, “We’ve got to save the world, haven’t we?”

 

He laughed for her, thought it sounded as pained as it did amused.  “Yes, I think we have.” He clambered to his feet, hesitated, then offered her his hand.  She stared at it in numb fascination for a second, and then reached out and took it.  He pulled her up as well.  “You know,” he said, “every time I think there’s not a thing in the universe I haven’t gone through with a companion, you always manage to prove me wrong.”

 

Ace shot him a rueful look.  “Is that good or bad?”

 

“I honestly don’t know.  But it does keep me on my toes.”

 

She looked down at their hands.  The Doctor wished he knew what she was thinking, but after all he’d just said, Ace wouldn’t be ready to confide her feelings for a while.  And that was as it should be.  These weren’t matters that were well discussed in the midst of threat and danger.  At least they’d shed some of the tension.

 

Ace looked up, catching his gaze.  A grin teased at the corners of her mouth, even if it was a bit sad.  “Come on, Doctor,” she said, “let’s go and save the day.”

 

He broke out into a grin of his own and murmured, “Oh, by all means.”

 

Ace started walking again.  The Doctor followed.  Now that he no longer had to worry about what he was doing or saying around her, he could think about this entire business in more general terms.  Truth be told, he was more or less cast out to sea by the newest twist in what was already one of his most unique relationships ever.  It was one thing for her to kiss him, but it was quite another to kiss her back.  And he’d done just that.  It had been thrilling in a strange way.  But when it was over, he’d given her a list of very good reasons why it shouldn’t have happened.  Why it should never happen again.  And both moments had felt equally valid to him.

 

The problem was that he had no real conception of what she wanted.  She not only loved him, but she was _in love_ with him, and that was a very new state of affairs. 

 

He knew he loved Ace.  He'd loved her for years with as much intensity as a Gallifreyan could muster.  But therein lay the problem: he didn't know if his Gallifreyan understanding of love would allow him to experience the human concept of being 'in love'.  He certainly wasn't convinced he'd experienced it in the past.  The odd twinges, now and again, perhaps, but he couldn't be sure they weren't grief or selfishness or sentimentality or . . . or simple indigestion.

 

Mostly, for him, 'in love' was what stole some of his best and brightest companions away from him, right when they were becoming interesting.  It stole his granddaughter!  Of course, at the time he hadn't believed that Susan's love was real and not some childish fantasy.  But it had been her life to do with as she chose.  When she’d decided to go he’d let her leave, and hoped she found a measure of the happiness she’d been looking for.  Happiness was what he wanted for all his companions, in the end.  If some dithering moron of a human male was what it took, then far be it from him to stand in the way.

 

He’d half-expected Ace’s tenure with him to end in the same manner.  One day, quite out of the blue, she would introduce some young man he found to be irritating and mentally negligible.  The next thing he’d know, she would be out of the TARDIS and his life, and all for that silly, ephemeral thing called ‘in love.’

 

He hadn't anticipated that when it happened, _he'd _be the not-so-young man with whom she claimed to be in love.  That was a turn up for the books.  Meanwhile he was left floundering, trying to work out whether he was capable of requiting this emotion. 

 

The problem was that he had no reference point to be able to quantify his love for Ace.  That was the issue here: quantity.  Potency, if you like.  There was insufficient data for him to calculate whether what he felt was merely friendly affection, or whether he might be ‘in love’ too.

 

This was, most assuredly, something of a bind.  He stumbled a bit and Ace’s hand tightened around his.  “Careful,” she whispered.

 

He chided himself for his lack of focus.  That was another thing Ace had over him in this area: she was used to dealing with these strong emotions, and she knew how to shut them off when she needed to.  This sensation was so new that he was having a hard time suppressing it even for short periods.  Not when his intensely inquiring mind was determined to investigate it from every angle.

 

But she was right.  They had a planet to save and these things _could_ wait.  The fabric of space and time couldn’t. 

 

The only thing for it was to dedicate a small, semi-conscious part of his mind to the calculations necessary to determine how much, precisely, he loved his companion.  The rest of his conscious mind would therefore be free to focus on the task at hand.  Having decided on a course of action, the Doctor shunted the mathematical complexities of love to something one step removed from his subconscious, and focused his attention on the play of the phantasmal illumination cast by his torch across the well-appointed hall through which they moved.  After a moment’s consideration, he drew the emissions detector from his pocket once more and turned it on with a flick of his thumb.

 

The signals were tipping the needle, which, for such an advanced piece of technology, was impressive.  “The sort of power being channeled through this house is astounding,” he said.

 

“It’s tearing the universe apart.  I’d hope it was something more than a coconut bomb.”

 

The Doctor shot her a glare.  Typical Ace, to take an important pronouncement like the one he'd just made and offer something glib in response.

 

Should such quirks factor into his calculations or not?

 

Suddenly Ace threw her arm across his chest, stopping him short.  He glanced over at her and she had a hand raised to her mouth, indicating the need for quiet.  She pointed up.

 

The Doctor strained his ears.  He had complete trust in her in matters such as these.  If she said there was something one level up, he was more than willing to believe her, but he also had a driving need to hear it himself.

 

There was a soft hum in the stillness.  Definitely electrical.  Probably the energy they’d been tracking, feeding into some sort of machine.  He returned Ace’s gaze and nodded.  They’d found their entry point. 

 

In the semi-darkness, she mouthed the word “stairs.” 

 

They hadn’t passed any on their way in, but in a house this large there should be a grand staircase somewhere near the front of the house.  At least, if the architecture of this planet conformed to galactic norms.  His mind formed a vague layout of the area through which they’d traveled in context to the relative size and shape of the building.  “Left,” he whispered.  “We need to head to our left.”

 

“Doors?” she asked.

 

“You usually don’t have a doorway leading to another hallway.”

 

“That a bit of SWAG, then?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Scientific Wild-Arsed Guess.”

 

“Oh.  Yes.”

 

“Right.  I’ll start checking doors.”

 

The rooms were all dark and luxurious.  Ace listened at each door before opening it, and several times she held up a hand to signify sound from inside.  She’d then wrench open the door, ready to face whatever attacks might manifest.

 

Only nothing ever did.  There was never anything in the rooms, even when the sounds were loud enough to be heard down the hall.  They proceeded in this way: checking each room and finding no means to the second floor. 

 

And then, just as Ace began to growl low in her throat and the Doctor began to question whether or not he should be prepared for the cheetah to emerge, she wrenched open a door and they found themselves looking up a rickety back stair.  And the entire span was blotched with spots of impenetrable darkness.


	11. Ex Post Facto

“Oh shit,” Ace breathed as she stared up the dark length of stair.  She wasn’t as good with maths as the Doctor, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that the stairway could well be impassable. 

 

She hadn’t come this far to be beaten by a few patches of darkness, though.  She hissed, “Stay close.”  He nodded, folded up his marshmallows-on-a-stick device, and slipped it into his pocket. 

 

There was nothing for it but to take the first step.  The stairs creaked.  The amorphous blobs of solid dark gave off waves of cold, and Ace could only imagine the conditions in that universe.  Was heat as unknown a commodity as light there?  What could beings from the other side possibly want with this universe when they were so different? 

 

Of course, those things they lacked might be exactly what they wanted.  Heat and light might be precious in their universe.  Other things, too: music or superstrings or love.  She glanced back at the Doctor.  The Shadowmen were welcome to that last one.  It was more trouble than it was worth. 

 

Here she’d been pining over the Doctor, terrified of acting on her feelings for fear of rejection.  Then, to her shock, he’d kissed her.  Lying on the ground in a house full of rifts at the end of this world, and he’d given her a kiss that made every one of her nerve-endings sit up and take notice.  And then, right when she was expecting everything to simply work out, Mr. Mixed Signals got cold feet.  He’d backed away and given his reasons why it couldn’t work, and the worst part had been that they were _good _reasons.  But he’d also said in all but words that he did love her.  Sort of.

 

Bloody confusing was what it had been.  Something was going on, something he wasn’t telling her still, but she didn’t have time to dig for it.  She had a job to do and a world to save.  Her excitement and confusion and her hurt paled next to those poor people huddled on the beach waiting for a miracle.

 

Ace needed to deliver that miracle, and she wasn’t going to do it by standing around mooning after the Doctor.  He was giving her a curious look, and she returned it with an encouraging smile.  Then she turned and continued, reassured by his presence at her back.  Two steps, then three, and the rifts were already getting much closer together.  Ace’s slow pace became painstaking.  After a second, she stopped.  In the darkness, discerning rift from shadow was nearly impossible, even with the help of the light from the sonic screwdriver.  What she needed was some sort of rift sensor.  A divining rod for safe paths.

 

She held out her hand behind her.  “Here, give us your brolly,” she said.

 

“My what?”

 

“Brolly.”  She felt the plastic handle pressed into her hand.  Ace hefted it, and then swung it ahead of them in a slow, careful arc.  There were places it remained visible and places where it slipped into the blackness.  When it emerged seconds later, its waterproof fabric was limned with frost. 

 

Ace gauged the size of the gaps between rifts.  The best route straight through was up against the right-hand wall.  While there looked like there would be a few uncomfortably tight squeezes along the way, she liked that option better than trying to wind their way through possibly larger gaps where they couldn’t reach a railing for support. 

 

She nodded up the right-hand side of the stairs, letting the Doctor in on her plan.  He gave a quick nod of agreement.  Ace flattened herself against the wall and inched upwards, one hand gripping the railing.  The first few rifts were easy enough to pass, but they were soon much closer to her side of the stairway.  It got so bad that one rift was scant inches in front of her eyes as she passed, the tiny space between the darkness and her nose doing little to protect her from the chill.  Even as she squinted her eyes against the cold, Ace couldn’t help but study the rift.  The dark seemed a uniform blackness, but she thought she caught a sense of movement within, as if unseen things pressed and wriggled against its surface.

 

The Doctor seemed to be having a worse time of it, especially when passing that particular rift.  Though by no means a bulky man, he wasn’t as slender as she.  His attempts at passing the blobs of dark seemed to rely far more on agility than size, and Ace saw him dance past more than one seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

 

So far so good.

 

Step by step they continued upwards.  The rifts pressed so close now that it was impossible to take even a moment to relax and breathe.  The strain of constantly monitoring where feet and hands and body were in position to the dangers all around was beginning to make Ace's head ache.

 

At last—when it felt they’d been climbing long enough for her to go gray—they reached the top of the stairs.  Ace studied the final few feet to the door with a sinking sensation.  Their already tricky situation threatened to become impossible.  Blocking the way to the door was darkness: solid and stretching from wall to wall.  There was a small patch at floor level that seemed clear, but even if they could limbo underneath, there was no way to reach the door handle.

 

There were other ways to open doors, however.  This was Ace's territory, and unless she was very much mistaken the situation called for a directional explosive.  She glanced back at the Doctor, who frowned as though anticipating her plan.  She caught his shoulder, leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I’ve got a directional microcharge that can take care of this door no problem, but I need you to hold onto me while I make the approach.  I don’t want to risk contact with the rift without some kind of anchor, right?”

 

“You don’t want to risk contact with the rift, full stop.”

 

"Okay, it's not the best plan ever, but we need to get through that door.  You have any better ideas?"  The Doctor shook his head, resigned.  "Thought not.  So keep a hold of me and if it looks like that rift's taken a shine to me, pull.  Hard as you can."

 

If she waited for an answer, they’d be debating the issue until the world tore itself apart.  She turned, lay down, and started scooting forward.

 

She felt the instant the darkness was overhead.  Every hair on the back of her neck stood on end and no amount of clothing protected her from the chill.  She nearly pulled back in shock, but the Doctor’s arm slipped loosely around her waist and the cold seemed to recede.  It was like his mere presence muted the effects of this place on her.

 

Grateful for whatever protection she could get, Ace wriggled forward the last few feet.  The Doctor’s grip tightened briefly then slipped lower around her hips.  With his hand resting on the crest of her femur, Ace reached the wood of the door.  It seemed hot after the chill given off by the darkness above, and Ace wasted no time in placing the charge and arming it.  It was a simple bomb: no remote detonation.  Only a short timer to allow Ace to get her hand clear.  She pulled back just enough to avoid any side-blast, and the charge went off.  The directional shockwave blew the door apart, and bits of the green stone from the walls came raining down with it. 

 

Subtlety abandoned, she shouted, “Let go!  I’m going in.” 

 

The Doctor’s hand slipped away and Ace gave one hard squirm which got her to the top of the stairs, and then another to clear the wreckage of the door.  She leaped to her feet and faced a room full of about twenty people in togas. 

 

“Looks like the place,” she muttered to herself.

 

She took in the situation as quickly as possible.  Instead of the expected hallway, the stairs opened directly into a large room.  Its agate walls were covered with white paint that still showed the grooves of the rock.  That white was complemented by the two rows of gleaming chrome equipment along the far wall.  Ace’s side of the room was relatively clear save a few lone computer consoles rising out of the floor like sharply squared-off electronic mushrooms.

 

And the toga patrol stood in a clump between her and the computer banks.  They didn’t seem to be monitoring the equipment, but rather they were huddled together.  Maybe this was some sort of tactical discussion.  Or a powwow.

 

She heard the Doctor behind her struggling to get through the makeshift pass she’d created, but couldn’t afford to turn and help him.  Just in case they were attacked, she needed to be ready to buy him time.  "Oi!" she shouted.  "Don't want to break up the party or anything, but I was wondering—you lot _do_ know you're well on the way to destroying the world, right?"

 

No one responded.  No one even turned. 

 

“Hey!  Toga patrol!” she called, keeping squarely in front of the Doctor.  “You can’t just ignore this sort of thing and hope it goes away.”

 

“Ace!” the Doctor called a warning.

 

Not that he needed to.  Twenty heads began the incremental turn towards her.  Every revealed face was ghastly pale, and every person had blank, white eyes.

 

Ace’s own eyes widened and she pulled out a can of Nitro-Nine.  “Then again, maybe you already knew that,” she said.  She flicked the safety cap off without thinking, arming the explosive.

 

With a synchronicity that went beyond rehearsal and into hive-mentality, every toga-clad zombie opened its mouth, first beyond comfort and then beyond physical possibility.  Ace heard cracks echo through the room as jawbones snapped.  Then—just when she thought she was as freaked out as she was going to get—a darkness which seemed almost liquid poured forth from those gaping mouths . . . and poured, and poured, filling the air around them with impenetrable blackness.

 

The cloud of dark began to expand, to wrap itself around the zombies.  Wherever darkness touched, Ace saw skin shriveling.  She winced on behalf of the white-eyed zombies, though they didn’t seem to care that they were doing this to themselves.  She expected to hear screams any minute, but there were no sounds of anguish or pain.  The awful, ringing silence somehow seemed _more_ wrong.  They were too far-gone to even feel themselves die.  If they were even alive enough to count as dying, which was debatable. 

 

The darkness crawled up the bodies it encountered like hungry, sentient tar.  The members of the toga patrol were shriveling away to husks, all moisture leached through the cloud of black, leaving only mummies.  They looked just like the huddle at the hotel, Ace remembered, trying not to give in to panic.  Their position and everything.  All that was missing were the two leads and the production was complete.  Ace was almost thankful when the darkness had closed over them and they were gone. 

 

Her gratitude was short-lived.  To her horror, she realized that the darkness was continuing to spread, now filling the entire far side of the room.  Ace was sure it was advancing closer, like it was attracted—or even outraged?—by the warm bodies it now sensed beside the splintered doorway . . .

 

This was it, then.  That was how she would die: passing through a rift in time and space and getting freeze-dried and mummified. 

 

Well, to hell with that.  She wasn’t going to be turned into a corpse without a fight.  Problem was, she didn’t know how to fight something as ephemeral as darkness.  She glanced down at the explosive in her hand.  It wasn’t guaranteed, but it was as good a weapon as she was going to get.  She pulled back to hurl the explosive.  The darkness rolled toward her like a fog bank. 

 

Fish song filled the room, and even if it lacked the indefinable quality of the actual song that had made Ace feel so small, the darkness reacted to it as though there were no difference.  The edge of the wall began to shiver, and bits of it seemed to evaporate away like smoke.  Ace, still pressed back against the Doctor, hissed, "_Now _he tells me that the fish-song nobbles the rifts!  Wasn't it worth mentioning when we were going up that stairway?"

 

“This is a controlled rift.  The way it moves?  Someone’s pulling the strings from the other side, and I doubt it’s the infovores.”

 

Ace recapped the Nitro-Nine, disarming it, and then slipped it back into its pouch.  “You’re not attacking the rift,” she realized.  “You’re attacking the people generating it.”

 

“Precisely.”  His voice was a low growl, and she felt him begin to move.  She kept step with him, an odd parody of the dance they’d shared, and they edged around the room toward a door partially shrouded in darkness.  The Doctor kept his sonic screwdriver before them.  “I can’t move the darkness once it’s established itself.  I can merely form a holding pattern.”

 

“In other words, it’s going to be a tight squeeze through that door.”

 

“Yes.”

 

They kept edging, and Ace wondered how she’d gone from attending a ball to having a Mexican stand-off with the dark.  She noted a cable on the floor and moved to step over it.  Only with the Doctor . . .

 

Who suddenly tripped.  Ace was tugged off-balance as his arm knocked her in the side of the head as he lost his balance.  She couldn’t turn to see what happened, but guessed that he’d not noticed the cable.  She heard the shuffling of his feet as he tried to regain his balance, then a sharp crack and a cry of pain.  There was a clatter of instruments, and Ace realized he’d fallen into one of the computer consoles.  And from his cry, she didn’t doubt it had been a bad fall.  She shook her head to clear out the pain of the unexpected blow, and as she did, she heard something else: the soft tinkle of a small and metallic object hitting the floor.  The Doctor had only been holding one metallic object.  The sonic screwdriver skittered into view, stopping several feet in front of her.  The fish song was abruptly shut off.

 

The silence surged back in, and so did the darkness.  It was like a dam breaking, and the wall rushed toward her.  Between them was the tiny glitter of metal that was the sonic screwdriver.

 

Ace dived.  She hit the ground rolling, catching up the device as her hand slapped the floor, and when she came out of her impromptu somersault, she jabbed it forward and hit what she prayed was a play button.  The darkness reached for her, and she felt the ice of it.  The hairs on her arm stood up.

 

And then the fish song played.  The darkness shivered to a stop centimeters from her hand.   The Doctor caught her carry-vest collar from behind and dragged her to her feet.  They staggered toward the door at the far end of the room, faster this time than the last.  Ace’s throat was dry, and she was glad he didn’t try to talk this time around.

 

She heard the Doctor open the door, but didn’t turn to watch his progress.  She didn’t take her eyes off the darkness for even an instant.  Not until the Doctor had backed through the door and pulled her in after him.  She kicked the door closed, but kept the fish song going.  There was perfect stillness on her side of the door, but she could feel the darkness amassing against the other side.  Surely something so flimsy as a door wasn’t going to stop it.

 

But nothing came.  Seconds passed, and the door remained just a door.  No unexpected shadows or rolling dark.  She turned off the fish song, thumb still on the play button in case it was needed again.  Almost a solid minute of tensely waited-out nothing, after which the Doctor pried the screwdriver from her hand.  The movement shattered her paralysis, and a shudder ran through her as she processed the fact that they had made it.  They were still alive.

 

"I think we might need to find another way out," she muttered.  She didn't get a reply, so she frowned and turned from the door to look at the Doctor.

 

He wasn't there.  Instead Ace was nose-to-nose with her own mummified corpse.  Even as she was processing the shock, its mouth fell open and began to spew blackness at her.  She stumbled backwards instinctively, gasping her horror.  As if that wasn't enough, there was suddenly a hand plunging through the corpse's chest—_her _chest—reaching to grab at her and cracking open the mummified ribcage to expose the shriveled organs within.  Ace squeezed her eyes closed, reminding herself that screaming was something she just never bloody did and she wasn't going to start now.  What she'd been looking at _had _to be an hallucination . . . it _had _to be . . .

 

She felt something grab hold of her jacket and the sound which escaped her was part shriek, part choked-off whine, but she was by now too terrified to worry about her cred.  She was dragged forward, and she struggled against the force because the last thing she wanted was to come up against her dried up corpse and the darkness it was vomiting; shrivel up like the zombies next door and end up a twin to the thing that was doing this to her, even though it made a horrible kind of sense because the scene in the hotel had _shown _her this, it had _told _her how things would finish . . . so much for the Doctor's 'infinite possibilities'.

 

Weirdly enough, in the microseconds which preceded her inevitable death, Ace found herself thinking, 'At least I got to kiss him.  And he kissed back.'

 

The dragging brought her into contact with something solid, but not freezing or desiccated.  The surprise made her blink open her eyes.  They took in a vision of uniform red question-marks.  Her head snapped up and she stared into the concerned gaze of the Doctor.  She looked behind her.  There was no corpse, no person-shaped tower of blackness, but the door had been completely consumed by the darkness.  The very door she had just been trying to back into.

 

“I take it the hallucinations have started again?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Oh yeah,” she said.  She pressed closer to him for a second, collecting her composure enough to look at the situation objectively.  “I think they’re smarter.”

 

He scrutinized her.  “How so?”

 

“That last one was _herding_ me towards the dark.  Trying to get me so scared I just fell into it.”

 

He touched her cheek and Ace felt a sense of calm pervade her.  The Doctor’s voice was a little strained as he asked, "Any better?"

 

She opened her eyes and her head was clearer.  The sense of dread she’d felt had lessened, and she was able to take in her surroundings.  They were in another room.  This one was small and almost empty, save for some filing cabinets and recording equipment.  It looked like some sort of records room with two entrances.  One was covered in darkness, so that left the door on the other side of the room.

 

Feeling much more in control now that she could focus without the terror that had so shaken her perceptions, she said, "I am, actually.  What did you just do?"

 

"A little protection against the effects of this place."

 

“Don’t you need to conserve your strength for yourself?  This house is doing much more of a number on you than it is me.”

 

He waved off her concern.  "What's happening to me isn't something I can prevent.  Strength is irrelevant.  But I can help _you_, protect you from these hallucinations, so I will.  One of us needs to keep our wits about us."

 

She quirked a smile.  “That’s me.  Always on top of things.”  She patted his chest in what was supposed to be reassurance, but the Doctor winced and Ace felt something warm and wet on her hand.

 

Her attention was immediately drawn to the very obvious damage the Doctor's clothing and person had sustained in the other room.  She didn't know how she'd missed it.  She'd even forgotten about the cry of pain he'd given when he'd fallen over, mainly because she'd been distracted by retrieving the screwdriver and saving both their lives.  She examined that damage now: his pullover was shorn clean through in a line across his chest, and the button-down underneath bore smaller perforations.  Blood spattered both shirt and pullover from points where the sharp corner of the console he'd crashed into had managed to pierce the skin.  Ace frowned.  It looked nasty, painful, but not life-threatening.

 

Unfortunately it also looked like the exact same pattern of damage—right down to the blood spatter—as they'd seen on their mummified counterparts.

 

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

 

He glanced down at the damage, frowned, and said, “It means nothing.”

 

“Nothing but we’re one step closer to mummies!”

 

His gaze was flinty.  “We are not dying here, and we are certainly not getting mummified.”  He crossed his arms and looked away.  “For one, I would regenerate.  And secondly, mummification is simply . . . undignified.”

 

Ace snorted in spite of herself.  The Doctor had a knack for calming her down through a precision application of the absurd.  "Yeah," she said.  "When it comes to the manner of our deaths, dignity's always the key factor, right?"

 

“I’d like to think so.”

 

The world shuddered.  Ace staggered and the Doctor clutched at his head, hissing in pain.  Time was running out.  She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled.  If they were lucky, the one remaining door in the room would lead them somewhere useful, and they could get to the bottom of this mess before anything worse happened.  Her hand closed around a handle that was cold to the touch, and she pulled open the door.

 

The room beyond was large and full of electronics.  Consoles and monitors were all linked up to a huge metal frame which crackled with incandescent energy.  Within the circle of metal was suspended a translucent, slick membrane which occasionally picked up a stray arc of color from the super-conducted energy.

 

“What the hell is that thing?” she asked.

 

The Doctor stared at the apparatus in horrified fascination.  “It’s a mirror.”

 

“A what?”

 

“A mirror.  A membrane where the fabric between realities is stretched to breaking.  Enough pressure . . .”

 

“And it’s goodbye world as we know it."

 

The Doctor was on the move, bounding over toward the bank of computers and other consoles squeezed into the corner of the room.   Ace was hot on his heels.  They were in the center of the room when they could finally see the entire workspace.  It was cramped, but surprisingly advanced.  Too advanced for the state of technology she’d seen elsewhere on the planet.  No.  That wasn’t right.  The glow-balls and the hairbrush she’d used were actually technically advanced.  This workspace was just . . . less discreet.

 

They slipped into the enclosure of computers and consoles, almost tripping over something as they did.  It was a body, mummified, of a man in a crisp, navy blue suit with matching navy hair.  Not a member of the toga patrol.  In fact, although she couldn’t be sure, she thought he was the man they’d seen on their way to the ball; the one who had either been preoccupied with her accessories or her chest.  He was clearly someone who'd been at home amid the equipment in the room; he still clutched a diagnostic tool of some kind in desiccated fingers.  Ace had seen too much horror in the last few hours to be disgusted by the gnarled corpse at their feet.  She just sighed, looking down at this rather forlorn figure, and said, "It's like we were invited to a party but we got there too late."

 

The Doctor nodded and removed his hat.  "So this is the mad genius behind the rifts," he murmured.  "Dust and dry bones.  What a waste.  He must have had an amazing mind."

 

"Must have," Ace agreed, a touch cynically.  "I'm sure that's comforting to those who've been killed or possessed or lost loved ones in the last hours."  The Doctor turned sharply to her, then conceded her point with a nod.  "Okay, eulogy's over.  Time to clean up the mess he left us with."

 

The Doctor looked up at her, and his eyes were flat and cold as ice.  He put his hat back on and Ace knew it was time to work.  He took his place behind the largest computer console and brought it on-line.  Ace, meanwhile, began inspecting the machinery for weaknesses.  She still considered just blowing everything up to be a workable option.  Especially if the man responsible for everything was already dead.

 

“I can’t seem to work out . . .” the Doctor muttered, but trailed off.  Then he said more loudly, “I can’t tell where all the power is coming from.  There’s no way the city should be able to provide the necessary amount.”

 

“But it is.”

 

“I need you to find out where the additional power is coming from.  If they have some sort of portable generator, the easiest way to power down this apparatus might be to simply disconnect it.”

 

Ace redirected her efforts in the requested direction.  “Power source,” she said.  “Got it.”  The bank of computers seemed free of anything like that, so she drifted out, nearer the mirror, and began following leads.  Probably the most practical method of powering it by a portable source would be a direct linkup, after all. 

 

Everything seemed to go to more computers, each monitoring one of apparently a thousand details which had to be precisely accurate for the mirror to function.  “Hey, Professor,” she called, still looking, “couldn’t we just tweak a few calculations and throw off the commands from some of these computers?  Wouldn’t that shut down the mirror as well as anything?”

 

“Yes it would,” he said.  “It would also probably incinerate everything in a two-kilometer radius.  The levels of power we’re dealing with here are extremely dangerous if disturbed.”

 

Ace frowned.  She should have known that herself.  This whole situation (not even thinking about the situation between the Doctor and her) must be getting to her.  “That’s why you want to cut the power,” she muttered to herself.

 

She went back to the mirror and traced a new lead.  This was a different make than the others, possibly signifying a different sort of current running through it.  The cable led to what appeared to be a reinforced metal box. 

 

“I think I’ve found something!” she shouted, examining the controls which would open it.  She typed tentatively and then with growing confidence.  She’d worked with something comparable before.

 

The box opened to reveal a power source . . . a horribly, _horribly _familiar power source.  Ace stared in confusion.  This was a jumper-cable.  She knew it was a jumper-cable because she was the one who'd designed and built them as a backup supply of artron energy, an emergency means of kickstarting the TARDIS.

 

What the hell was this?  A coincidence?  A confluence of technologies that happened to occur right on the planet where the TARDIS had landed?  Hardly.  Not when the cylinder she was staring at had the binary number '1011' etched on its surface in silver pen, _in her own handwriting_.

 

"Oh bollocks," she breathed.  Then she squared her shoulders and said, "Professor?  Problem."  Because there were only two people aside from them who could have had access to these jumper-cables.  And one of those people had gone missing just minutes after setting foot in the TARDIS . . .

 

“Back away from the power-source,” Meeka said.

 

Ace whirled around.  There, inevitably, stood Meeka, looking just the same as she'd looked on the beach.  Except for the bits that had fallen out, her hair was still twisted in that elaborate updo; her dress still shimmered.  But her sweet, heart-shaped face was blank and chill . . . which seemed fitting, really, given that she was currently holding a blaster to the back of the Doctor's head.

 

Ace’s focus narrowed to that.  Just the gun.  She wasn’t good at seeing the Doctor threatened at the best of times, and under these specific circumstances, Ace had to restrain herself from doing something rash and stupid.  Because the cheetah was awake.  It was growling in the back of her mind, desperate to get out.

 

But she wouldn’t be fast enough, even with the augmented physicality of the cheetah, to save the Doctor before he was shot.  Not like that.  She had to keep calm and wait for her chance.  Ace put her hands up and stepped, not only away from the power-source, but also towards Meeka and the Doctor.  “We’ll cooperate,” she said, forcing her voice to stay rock-steady.  “You don’t need that.”

 

Meeka clicked her tongue in disapproval.  “You forget: I’ve seen you.  The yellow eyes.  The sharp teeth.  There’s something of a monster in you, so I think I’ll keep my blaster.”

 

“And you?” the Doctor asked.  He didn’t flinch as Meeka pressed the gun into his hair.  “I think there might be more than a little monster in you.  You’ve seen this world, what’s happening to it.”

 

“I’ve seen mistakes that need to be corrected.  I’ve seen tiny flaws in an otherwise perfect idea.”

 

Well, whatever, Ace thought.  Megalomaniacs always had their justifications.  She was busy, in any case, backtracking over the events of the last day.  She couldn't believe she hadn't seen this coming.  First there was the way Terrin and Meeka had seemed to be the only other guests at the hotel . . . how had Meeka arranged that?  Presumably tampered with the service droid to reject all other bookings.  But the Doctor's had got through.  Meeka had wanted access to the Doctor, access to the TARDIS.  How long had this been in the planning?  Ace could think of nothing else for it, so she asked.

 

“When your ship arrived, we heard,” Meeka said.  “I was one of several dispatched to find you.  I was sent to the ball, and as soon as I saw you I flagged your location.  You were even kind enough to take a walk outside, _alone_.  Really, you think you’d never been in dangerous situations before.”

 

“But you didn’t figure on the Doctor not reacting to the drug, did you?” Ace asked, willing Meeka’s attention to stay on her.  The Doctor started to edge infinitesimally away from his captor.

 

“That did puzzle us, but then again, Time Lord physiology isn’t well-known anywhere.”

 

“So why not just overpower him?”

 

“We didn’t know anything about the two of you.  I heard tell that the Lords of Time were powerful telepaths; that they could destroy your mind with a glance.  We couldn’t attack until we knew your true strength.”

 

“And that’s where you came in.  You and Terrin.  What did he know about you?”

 

The Doctor was a good several inches away from Meeka now.

 

She didn’t notice.  “That I rescued him from a punchbowl.  The wonderful thing about Terrin is that he really is as stupid as he seems.  He fell in line perfectly, and the plan went off as planned.  I kept track of you and followed you back to the hotel.  Once we knew where you were—in one of our controlled buildings, no less—it was easy enough to reprogram the service droids to redirect all the occupants to another hotel due to a ‘system breakdown’.  Within the hours you spent in your rooms recovering from our drugs, we cleared the hotel, and then I had Terrin book the two of us in.  All I had to do then was wait.”

 

“How did you know that we’d be stopping by your floor?” Ace asked.  The Doctor was almost a safe distance away from Meeka.

 

She laughed.  “I didn’t.  I’d finally convinced that idiot Terrin to go and check on the service droid and I thought I’d see you in the lobby.  Imagine my surprise when my quarry came to me!  The two of you were so helpful, too.”  She grinned, and her voice took on a mockery of the light, syrupy tones she’d used previously.  “Befriending the two helpless natives, leading them to safety on your incredible ship.  And even providing me with a power source to replace the one you took away.”  Her smile seemed to imply that she expected to be praised, or at least congratulated for a hand well-played.  “The best assistants a girl could ask for, on top of a perfectly executed plan,” she said.

 

“But not _your_ plan, I think,” the Doctor said.  Ace had the momentary fear that Meeka would realize just how far from her he’d moved, but she seemed preoccupied.

 

Her eyes had gone to the dead man.  “No.  Not mine.”

 

“Whose, then?” Ace asked, wanting her attention back before they ran out of luck.  “Who do you owe so much that you’d be willing to risk your world?”

 

Meeka continued to gaze at the body on the floor.  Her voice was so soft that Ace took another step towards the workspace just to hear.  “He was my family,” she said.  Then her eyes snapped up and saw Ace, who stopped moving instantly.  Meeka stepped in close to the Doctor, grabbed him by the arm, jerked him close and eliminated his safety zone.  She pushed the gun closer to his head.  “He was my uncle.  And I’m not risking the planet.  Uncle Eneidro was meticulous in his calculations.  The initial ripples of space/time distortion will pass once the mirror is fully engaged.”

 

“That’s not possible,” the Doctor said.

 

“All our projected data—”

 

“Is useless.  You’re children playing with a loaded gun.  You think you understand, but you couldn’t possibly.”

 

Meeka’s pretty face twisted into something ugly in her anger.  “You’d best hope you’re wrong about that,” she said.  “Because the last thing I did before you walked in was to lock in the program.  The mirror _will_ open in . . .” she glanced at a readout, “a little less than one minute.  There’s nothing you, I, or anyone else can do about that.”

 

As far as Ace could tell, that left them with a very small window of opportunity; small, like one last desperate shot.  If the mirror activated then they'd lose the world and themselves with it.  The Doctor seemed to be in accord, because she could see he was tensing for one final lunge for the computers.  That made Ace's priority clear: stop him getting shot by Meeka in the process.

 

"So!" she called, loud and forceful; enough to make Meeka startle and look jittery.  "What should we call you now?  You can’t tell us Meeka’s your real name.”  Her hand stole towards a sonic grenade she’d packed.  Gallifreyan hearing registered higher up the scale than a human’s did, but it was also more resilient to damaging sounds.  If Ace was lucky, this would hurt only Meeka.  And Ace herself, of course, though she’d experienced worse.  The Doctor’s eyes caught the subtle movement and he started edging away what few inches he could get from Ace’s target. She kept talking, giving the Doctor time, but wasn’t really thinking much about what she was saying.  “You seem like a proper sort of Bond villain, telling us your whole plan and all.  Which, by the way, seems like terrible planning on your part.  We won’t be impressed and you come off as a bit daft.  Still, high marks and a nice name for trying, right?  So what do you want?  Dr. No?  Scaramanga?  How about Ernst Blofeld?  I was always partial to him myself.”

 

Meeka’s gun moved, pointing now towards Ace for that critical second.  Even as the girl demanded to know what she was talking about, Ace’s hand moved lightning-quick.  The grenade was out of its pouch and armed in less than a second, and then it was airborne.  Ace’s fingers were in her ears, knowing that this would hurt, but not nearly as badly as it would hurt the unprepared Meeka.

 

To Meeka’s credit, she actually got off a shot before it hit.  Ace felt the impact over her heart, but her breast pocket’s shielding capability worked against the outside as well as the inside, so the blast dissipated before it could detonate anything on her.  Nothing left but a small, blackened patch of fabric.

 

Then the grenade detonated not with a bang, but with a blast of pure sound.  Meeka fell as though pole-axed, but the Doctor, who had also managed to get his hands over his ears didn’t respond to the sound at all.  Ace felt one of her fingers encounter a warm wetness.  She’d probably torn her eardrum on that side, but it was a small price to pay.  Especially since Meeka’s blaster was now lying flat on the ground.  Ace dashed forward, knowing she had to reach the blaster before Meeka could recover her wits enough to get there first.  The Doctor was running, too, but for the computer console.

 

Ace dived and rolled, catching up the blaster and training it on Meeka.  The girl had collapsed next to the body of her uncle, moaning.  Behind her, Ace heard the clicks of the Doctor’s fingers punching in commands.

 

The hum from the mirror became louder, more of a pulse than something steady.  Ace didn’t turn, but she called over her shoulder, “Work fast!”

 

The Doctor didn’t respond, but the snarl she heard from his general direction told her it wasn’t going well.

 

Meeka’s eyes were large as saucers.  She wasn’t even looking at Ace.  Rather, she was looking at something beyond her.  At the mirror.  “Oh,” she whispered, her vocal tonality off, as though she was speaking without being able to hear herself.  Given the close-quarters detonation of a sonic grenade, that was quite likely.  “Isn’t it lovely?  Uncle Eneidro said it would be lovely.” 

 

Ace wondered if something in Meeka hadn’t snapped sometime during the night.  Then again, Meeka had probably been cracked for a very long time.  She was just good at covering it up.

 

The pulse became stronger, and Ace felt it reverberating in her chest.

 

“No,” the Doctor said.  “I refuse to accept that!”

 

“Accept what?” Ace shouted.

 

“This blasted computer!  It’s . . . no, that’s not possible.  I entered the abort commands and every override.  That is categorically _not possible_!”

 

She had to see.  Meeka was no threat in her present condition, and—Ace turned. 

 

The mirror was a solid sheet of cascading color.  Beyond, within the containment canister, the artron energy glowed a radiant gold.  Without even realizing it, Ace moved to the Doctor’s side.  He worked furiously at the console, but her eyes, like Meeka’s, were fixed on the mirror.

 

“Aha!” the Doctor said.  “There’s the subroutine that’s been blocking me.  Now, all I have to do is—”

 

In an instant, the color and light playing across the mirror was gone.  There was nothing but darkness within the ring.  And it was moving.  Ace couldn’t see it, but she could feel it in her bones.  Not one Shadowman but thousands, millions all clustered together, standing on the other side of the membrane.  They stood and watched, and their hands moved like a current.  They were reaching out, stretching to touch a world that wasn’t their own. 

 

“No,” the Doctor whispered.  “Oh, no.”

 

Ace’s throat went dry and she understood the inescapable reality of the situation.  She and the Doctor had failed.  The Shadowmen were about to come through.


	12. Fish and Birds

The Doctor let out a keening sound and fell to his knees, clutching at his head.  Ace made a split-second decision: she had to look after the Doctor.  Charging the mirror in some crazy attempt to blow it up was probably a bad idea anyway.

 

The Doctor was shaking and pale.  His body gave a sudden jerk and Ace grabbed him around the shoulders to keep him steady.  He jerked again, and she felt a surge of panic.  This had all the hallmarks of a seizure!  There was stuff you were supposed to do in this situation, she knew that much: stop the patient from swallowing their tongue or biting on it or something . . . put them in the recovery position?  Or was that afterwards?  Wouldn’t that make more sense as it was called ‘recovery’?  Shit, _why_ had she turned up her nose at Girl Guides?

 

The next convulsion wasn’t a single jerk but a series of lurching shakes that nearly threw her off.  Ace clung hard.  Behind her, she could hear Meeka chanting, “It worked, it worked, it worked . . .”

 

Ace turned her head to regard the girl in fury.  She would have loved to get up and lay into her properly, but the Doctor was still shaking, and keeping him from cracking his head on the corner of something was more important than hitting Meeka.  No matter how tempting it might be.  She settled for demanding, “Why?  Why the hell did you and your uncle do this?  What made you think that this was a good idea?”

 

Meeka seemed taken aback, as though the answer was obvious.  “We want to learn,” she said.  “These are the scientist-gods of the multiverse.  They’ve seen everything.  They know everything.”

 

“They’re going to kill your planet!”  Ace had a stroke of inspiration.  “They’ve already killed your uncle and all his followers, haven’t they?  Those rifts have been opening up, and they’re passageways into that universe.  You’ve seen what’s happened.  People either end up as mummies or zombies.  You call _that_ learning?  For God’s sake, you fought it yourself on the beach.  They sent you out with that fish-song in hand because they _knew_ it was dangerous!”

 

“It will stop now that the mirror is active!  Things will stabilize!  The scientist-gods will see to it!” 

 

And then Ace understood what Meeka and her entire cadre were.  They weren’t villains out of a James Bond film.  They didn’t want their world to die.  Meeka genuinely thought that this mirror would stabilize.  She thought that everything would work out, and they could learn from the Shadowmen like children in some sort of pan-dimensional classroom.  They weren’t evil.  Just selfish, naive, and deeply, _deeply_ idiotic.

 

“You were wrong,” Ace snarled.  “Terrin isn’t the only one as stupid as he seems.”

 

“We don’t . . .” the Doctor started, but couldn’t seem to manage more words than that.  Ace’s attention left Meeka immediately.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“We don’t . . . have time for this!” he hissed.  “We have to stop the Shadowmen from crossing into this reality.”

 

Ace looked up over the banks of the computers.  The endless ranks of Shadowmen still stood, poised on the other side of the mirror.  Perhaps they were waiting for some sort of signal or greeting.  If nobody from this side approached the mirror, she was fairly sure that they'd eventually get tired of waiting and would make a move themselves.

 

Meeka would be no help.  Ace’s challenge to her seemed to have prompted some sort of action at last, and the girl had scrambled over to the monitors.  She checked readouts, then crossed to the tall computer banks to check on things there.  She seemed determined to prove that all her calculations were right and that this could work.

 

Ace knew the Doctor would also be unable to assist her for much of anything.  He seemed to be rapidly losing focus as whatever extrasensory barrage the mirror was putting out consumed his mind.  This was up to her.  Ace would have to go and stand in front of the mirror and address an unknown universe.  And hope the Shadowmen could understand—or even hear—a word she was saying.

 

She pulled out two cans of Nitro and pressed them into the Doctor’s hands.  “Looks like we’re switching roles for this one,” she whispered to him.  “I’ve got to be the Time Lord, and you’ve got to blow things up if I can’t convince them to respect the border.”

 

“Ace—”

 

"If things go tits-up—and there's a good chance of that given my powers of diplomacy—arm these and lob them.  Aim for the jumper-cable she nicked.  If that doesn't work, try the mirror.  Might take half the city with it, but that's better than a whole planet."

 

“Ace—” he tried again, but couldn’t seem to get past that one word.

 

"Yeah, I know!" she snapped, aware that they were wasting time.  Then she sighed, because the Doctor was right, even if he wasn’t any better at it than she was: this needed to be said.  "Looks like you're off the hook, anyway.  I know the whole falling-in-love thing freaked you out.  No need to think up more excuses to let me down gently, 'cause I really don't see us surviving this one."  She contrived a cheery smile but knew she wasn't fooling either of them.  "For the best, really.  I'm the fish."

 

His eyes told her he didn’t have the slightest clue what she was saying, but the general implications of her tone were getting through.  And he didn’t like them.

 

“The fish,” she explained.  “You know, ‘a fish could love a bird, but where would they live?’  Whoever came up with that one was right.  A bit glass-is-half-empty, but right.  Where the hell would we live, Doctor?”

 

He seemed to have no response to that.  No words, and she had no time.  She’d stalled too much already, but a proper goodbye had been necessary.

 

“Right, then,” she said, rising.  Her eyes didn’t leave the Doctor’s.  He would be all right if the artron energy was all that needed to go.  The explosion would probably kill her, but the computer banks would shield him.  Meeka had disappeared behind some of the equipment to check on or adjust something or whatever it was she felt she had to do, so she’d be all right, too.

 

Encouraged, Ace lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and strode out to meet her enemy head-on.  Not really as Ace, since she wasn’t going to be the one to blow things up.  Not even as a Time Lady, because that wasn’t quite right, either.  The woman she’d pretended to be at the ball was too stuffy and pretentious to deal with an end-of-the-world scenario like this one.  No, she had to be something in between Ace and that all-knowing but inactive Time Lady.  Someone who had the experience and the Time Lord sense of self-worth to talk down the Shadowmen, while still having the mad courage to get up and face those sorts of impossible odds in the first place.  She needed to be a Doctor.

 

Ace stepped out from the protection of the computers and strode across the floor.  She stopped directly before the faceless, living darkness sprawled out before her and spoke.  “You can’t cross.  If you do, you’ll destroy this world.  You’ll eat away at it, and in the end you’ll be killed, too.  Do you remember Mirocongia?  How many did you lose when the Time Lords banished that planet into the outer dimensions?”  Not even a flicker of response.  Ace felt worry speed her heart rate.  “Do you understand?”  Nothing.  “_Can_ you understand?  Do you have any concept of loss or right or wrong?”

 

Nothing. 

 

Ace lifted her chin and looked down at the Shadowmen, her best imitation of the Doctor’s eagle-eyed stare.  The one he gave when he passed beyond anger and became an implacable force of destruction. 

 

The Oncoming Storm.  A mantle he’d worn time and time again ever the years she’d known him.  It settled heavy on her shoulders, but her voice was clear and cracked the air like a whip.  “I am Ace McShane!  I am a Champion of Time, a citizen of this universe.  I walk in eternity.  I’ve seen stars and planets and people die.  And I’ve saved stars and planets and people, too.  I am companion and friend to the Doctor, President Elect of the High Council of Time Lords, Keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon.  By everything that we are, I demand that you respond, either through communication or by withdrawing from this interface.  Now!”

 

She was breathing hard, adrenaline rushing through her veins.  The Shadowmen stood and stared, but gave no indication of comprehension.  Perhaps she was speaking too literally for them to understand.  Speech may not be enough. 

 

She stepped right up to the membrane.  On the other side, a single Shadowman did the same.  They faced each other.  It held out a hand.  For a second Ace thought it would come through for her.  She nearly panicked and reached for her remaining stash of Nitro, but stopped herself and forced what calm she had left to return.  Blowing things up was no longer her job.

 

The Shadowman’s hand hovered right at the membrane.  It was as if it was offering a mechanism to communicate.  A link?  So she would connect to this thing through the membrane and explain her thoughts, then it would relay them to its brethren?  She hoped she had it right; the alternative was that it intended to grab her by the hand and yank her through.

 

Necessary risk.  Ace squared her shoulders and told herself that she was absolutely, one-hundred-per-cent for certain _not _going to think about those mummified remains in the hotel room . . .

 

She put out a hand and touched the mirror’s surface, keeping the pressure of her hand light to the point of nonexistence.  She wasn’t sure how much it would take to push through, and didn’t want to find out.  The cold of it hit her hard, and it took all her willpower not to pull away.  Fingers like smoke brushed hers.

 

Thoughts.  They weren’t hers, she knew, because she wasn’t able to think that way.  Her wiring was wrong, and yet for an instant, the thoughts made perfect sense.  She had the strangest feeling that she was thinking simultaneously with two vastly different minds.  Everything felt like her thoughts, but they were detached from her.  Could this be what the mass consciousness felt?  An understanding of things never experienced and a comprehension of the incomprehensible?

 

Her mind and the mass consciousness of the Shadowmen seemed to be two incompatible machines jerry-rigged to work in tandem, if only for a short time.  The connections were tenuous at best, and the inconsistencies manifested themselves almost instantly as a blinding headache.  She was opened to the same sort of feedback the Doctor had been experiencing.  Perhaps, she thought, the Shadowmen had been trying to communicate with him all this time, but couldn’t get a solid enough grip to overcome the static of incongruity.

 

Through that pain, she started receiving information.  They were like the infovores, only more advanced.  They consumed data and fed it into the collective memory.  It was why they studied other universes: they needed information.  It sustained them, kept them alive.  And their universe was running out of data not retrieved, secrets not yet learned.

 

In some ways this made Meeka perfectly right: the Shadowmen were scientist-gods, their array of knowledge immense.  If they were prepared to teach then there was much any being could learn from them.  Data collection and processing was what they did for nourishment, knowledge and its pursuit was all they lived for.  And every Shadowman possessed the knowledge of every member of its race.

 

So they observed, easing sideways into other universes—

 

It was too much.  The connections which allowed contact between Ace and the Shadowmen started to collapse.  The physics allowing the transitions between universes was _wrong_.  Too strange even for Ace, who was used to the TARDIS.  Her mind rejected the connection, presumably before her brain shorted out or something equally disastrous.

 

The information ceased.  The Shadowmen were waiting for her mind to finish processing the information relayed before they attempted anything more.

 

It gave Ace time to not only regain her balance and her breath, but also to organize her thoughts.  She didn’t have time to learn how the Shadowmen went about doing what they did.  As interesting as it might have been at any other time, she had to focus on the goal.  She had to make them stay on their side.

 

Which meant she had to try again, only this time she needed to be the one transmitting information, not receiving.  Maybe that way the wrongness of it wouldn’t make her brain melt.  Ace closed her eyes and concentrated.  She relayed to them images of the people she’d seen possessed by infovores.  Those blank white stares and dead faces.

 

There was a shiver of incomprehension.  This concept of loss was just as wrong to them as their physics had been to her.  Ace almost jerked away from the membrane when she realised she was receiving information again, but she calmed down as it became clear it was easier this time.  The Shadowmen had learned from their first contact and were trying to communicate in a way more palatable to her.  They sent images, ideas, rather than patching her straight in to the consciousness.  Ace frowned, her eyes still closed, as she processed these images and tried to understand.  The fact that the Shadowmen were making an effort seemed positive in itself.

 

The ideas clarified: there was an understanding of separation, but only to an extent.  The group mind had known individual Shadowmen separate from the whole.  Ace couldn't tell whether this was a frequent thing, or a rare thing, because the concepts didn't exist.  It was just a thing.  A concept identified.  The mass-consciousness didn't have details, and the loss of the one was considered irrelevant because the sum of the individual's existence lived on in the mass.  Every Shadowman was every other.  Because of this they had no concept of death.

 

Ace was also unable to clarify whether this separation happened because of death or . . . disagreement?  Musical differences?  She didn't know whether it was an inevitable occurrence or a choice.  The Shadowmen didn't know because they didn't care.  They were practically a sentient computer core with no concept of emotion.

 

All right, then.  If an emotional appeal wouldn’t work, Ace would have to try a different tactic.  They craved knowledge.  Needed it to exist.  She communicated as best she could that if they came through and destroyed the planet, they would be destroying a potential source of knowledge.

 

The Shadowmen didn’t care.  Knowledge was knowledge and could come from any source.  The destruction of a planet would be informative.

 

Ace resisted the urge to slump against the mirror.  Nothing she tried, whether it be a logical argument or an emotional appeal, was working.  The Shadowmen were too set in their intentions to back down.  Not unless they were dealt a devastating blow.

 

She’d run out of options.  The only one left was attack.  Not bombs or blasters for once, but her mind against theirs.  She’d called their minds incompatible machines, and now Ace had the inspiration to use that very discord against them.  So she would teach them loss.  She would force them to feel emotions—all the pain and death in her one mind—and then she would push it through the entire collective.  A bleeding computer virus for the mind.

 

This was the sort of decision the Doctor often had to make: to save the world, she had to teach an innocent, naïve culture pain.  She would literally be torturing them with emotion to force them away.  Something seemed horrible about that.  Justifiable and probably even necessary, but also horrible.

 

The Shadowmen as one raised their hands toward her.  They were growing impatient, and she had to choose now.  Of course, there really was no choice.  It was selfish, but she’d choose her reality every time. 

 

She remembered, in the most vivid detail possible, loss.  She remembered the first death she’d ever experienced first-hand.  She remembered the still, waxy body of her gran in the coffin on the day her mother had dragged her to the funeral home to ‘say goodbye’.  Her mother had said that Gran looked beautiful like this, but little Dorothy hadn’t liked it.  The body looked wrong.  Not like Gran at all.  Whenever Ace thought of death, she saw that face, painted to perfection but still horribly empty.

 

The Shadowmen didn’t respond.  She needed something more visceral.  She remembered Manisha.  Her friend.  Her compatriot.  She remembered what Manisha’s flat had looked like after it had been firebombed.  She remembered the firemen bearing away her best friend’s body on a stretcher.  They’d taken her to an ambulance, but Manisha was past help.  They’d had no body bags, so the corpse had been covered by a clean but horribly impersonal white tarpaulin; not so much to protect Manisha’s dignity as the sensibilities of gathered onlookers.  Ace remembered the way one burned hand had fallen from its rest on the stretcher and appeared below the tarpaulin, a mess of red and black.  The last glimpse of her friend _ever_, and it had been a hand so burned she couldn’t even recognize it.  And Manisha had always had lovely hands: delicate and expressive.  But they were gone.  Fire took them from Ace.

 

Through the memories of grief and heartache, Ace addressed the Shadowman beyond the membrane.  "That's loss."  She was speaking out loud though she knew it could only hear her thoughts.  It was the best way she had to keep those thoughts organized.  “Something goes away and it never comes back.  None of it.  And the memory goes all funny because all you can really focus on is that last image.  Manisha died, and it changed her, because now she only lives on in memories and they aren't perfect.”

 

But they didn’t understand.  Because if Manisha lived in Ace’s mind, she still existed.  She had not ceased to be except in a practical way. 

 

Ace shook her head, barely aware of the tears running down her cheeks.  Why didn’t they understand?  Why couldn’t they know what it was like to lose someone dear and never see them again?  Why couldn’t they understand that a memory _wasn’t enough_?

 

She snarled.  She needed the Doctor.  He’d be able to teach them about death.  He could recall each and every one of the six times he’d died.  He could remember the pain and the fear and what it was like to wink out of existence.  Even with the assurance that he would be back in a new body, there had to be a horrible moment of doubt.

 

She tried to come up with something more powerful to force them to understand, but Manisha had been her trump card.  There was nothing worse. 

 

And just as she’d begun to resign herself to the idea that the only way to save this world was for the Doctor to follow through on his end of things, she heard a voice over her shoulder.

 

“I am Meeka.  I represent this world.” 

 

Ace was torn.  She could break contact with the Shadowmen and deal with Meeka, or she could maintain contact in the desperate and probably vain hope that she could yet make them see sense.  She glanced over her shoulder at the girl, who had a wild look about her.  Ace knew that look.  She’d seen it so many times over the years.  It was the look of someone whose world has suddenly died.  This was Meeka’s last hope.  If the Shadowmen weren’t the saviors her uncle had thought, he’d died in vain.  Everything Meeka had gone through was in vain, and she and her uncle had just been stupid, gullible people all along.

 

Meeka put out her hand and reached for the membrane.  Ace said, “Don’t,” but doubted that Meeka had even heard her.  The girl’s eyes were fixed on the Shadowmen, and her hand hovered next to the spot where Ace still pressed the membrane.

 

“I want to learn,” Meeka said.  “I want you to teach me.”  Her hand passed through the membrane, and Ace saw it wither, the fluids dissipating from it in a cloud which faded away almost as soon as it had appeared.

 

Meeka didn’t even seem to notice.  Ace realized what she was going to do and lunged to one side, trying to keep contact with the membrane with one hand and grab Meeka with the other.  Ace caught her elbow.  The rest of her passed through the membrane.

 

The connection between Ace and the Shadowmen was still there, but something else was established when she’d grabbed Meeka.  She wasn’t sure what sort of telepathic circuit she’d just closed, but whatever it was, she _felt_ Meeka die.  The sensation roared in her ears and overwhelmed her senses with a second of intense cold and a hideous sort of pressure, like being in a plane losing altitude far too fast. 

 

And then nothing.  For a moment, Ace’s mind was frozen into immobility as it absorbed the sensation of death.

 

And then the ranks of the Shadowmen began to ripple.  It was as though their physical forms were becoming insubstantial.  She felt, echoing back to her through them, the pain and the shock and the _nothingness_.

 

At that point Ace understood what really terrified the Shadowmen.  It wasn't the silence or the darkness of their world, because that was what they were used to.  It wasn't even the noise and light of _this _world, because though it was new and unfamiliar, it was still information to be pursued and accumulated.  What terrified them was nothingness.  This was the reason they created a mass consciousness, and why they struggled and even forced their way into other universes to obtain more information: they knew, instinctively, that once the information stopped flowing the nothing would find them.

 

Such a thing was death to them.  No, worse than that: genocide.  Apocalypse.  Death to the power of infinity.

 

Ace had lived with the concept of mortality as long as she could remember.  Death wasn't nice but it was a part of life.  But the Shadowmen . . . they understood individual loss, but because such losses involved no loss of knowledge they could _hide _from the idea of death.  And so they had.  Right up until this moment.

 

In Meeka's death the Shadowmen had finally experienced nothingness.  Just for an instant, vicariously, but undeniably.  Like Ace, they had _felt _the moment of death; a moment with no information or sensation or energy.  For her, it had been an unsettling and uncomfortable moment.  For the Shadowmen it had been the equivalent of the world being turned on its axis.  Nothing would ever be the same again. 

 

Meeka had succeeded where Ace had failed, and she'd done so accidentally.  In her over-eagerness to learn, to justify the death and destruction she and her uncle had wrought, she'd taught the Shadowmen about loss.  Ace waited, studying the figures beyond the membrane, waiting for them to get past their shock and acknowledge their guilt.  To withdraw.  Surely now they'd see they needed to leave this universe alone!

 

The Shadowman on the other side of the mirror stirred after perhaps a minute or so.  There was a rustling in the ranks behind it.  Ace's hand was, by now, aching with cold and tension, but she was too afraid to lift it clear.  Not until she knew the world was safe.  She breathed deep and set her shoulders and looked into the mirror, trying not to think _'I bloody told you so!' _at the would-be invaders.

 

And a response finally came through the link; a flash decision from the mass consciousness, through the membrane and into her mind.  Ace had prepared herself for their fear, their grief, their apology, their understanding.  But she hadn't prepared herself for this:

 

_'Evil.'_

 

“You what?” she demanded of the mirror.

 

The thought coalesced into more specific terms: the Shadowmen now understood another new concept: ‘evil’.  Ace's universe and its nothingness were evil.  And evil should not be allowed to persist. 

 

The Shadowmen were a unit, a single mind with one will.  What they had seen was the most appalling thing any of them had ever witnessed.  For the first time in the existence of the mass consciousness, it was feeling a strong emotion: revulsion, hatred, the need to purify.  Evil had to be fought.  Had to be conquered.

 

Ace tried to pull back, but found that her arm wouldn’t budge.  The Shadowmen were holding her in place with their collective will.  She felt their accusation: she had brought this evil, she had forced them to understand nothingness.  “No!” she shouted.  “I just want you to stay on your side!” 

 

She struggled, trying to get away, but it was no use.  She was being drawn further into the mirror.  In another second her hand would pass beyond the membrane and, like Meeka's, it would wither away, and the rest of her would follow, and-

 

Someone wrenched her from the mirror.  Ace yelped in surprise as the Doctor dragged her away from the device, back to the computer banks.  Whether he'd found his second wind, or her own dialogue with the Shadowmen had bought him the time to recover from the temporal assault on his senses, he was looking much better than when she'd left him on the floor.  She realized she was out of breath, so hard had she been struggling against the grasp of the Shadowmen.  Her hand was numb and useless after the extra-dimensional cold of the membrane.  She winced and trapped it between her legs, wondering what to say to the Doctor.

 

He didn't want to talk.  He was without expression as he pulled the pin from a can of Nitro-Nine and threw it.  It landed perfectly, right next to the power source Meeka had stolen from the TARDIS.

 

“Down!” Ace shouted.  They dropped to the floor.  Ace expected the roar of the explosion, and for a second that was precisely what she got, but then the sound . . . reversed somehow.  It was a roar backwards.  She wanted to look, her curiosity getting the better of her, but the Doctor’s hand shot out and kept her pinned to the floor.  Around them, lights on several of the computer banks flickered and died.

 

The reversed roar stopped.  The room was silent.  All the computer banks were dark, and the hum from the mirror had gone quiet.  Ace pushed herself up, feeling the Doctor let her go only hesitantly.  She peered over the console.  The membrane of the mirror had torn itself apart.  It hung from the frame in ragged strips.  Many of the power feed lines had ruptured.

 

And in the center of the frame where the membrane had once been stretched there was a single point of darkness.  A rift.  Below it, Meeka’s shattered body lay still.  Ace shivered.  She looked to the Doctor, who had an awful, pained expression on his face.  “I can still hear it,” he forced out through gritted teeth.

 

“What?  The feedback?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, there’s a tiny rift still over there.  Could . . .”  Ace ventured another peek and stopped mid-sentence.  The rift was growing.  “Something’s gone wrong,” she said, realization dawning.  “They’re still coming through.”

 

She heard a soft thump behind her and turned.  The Doctor had passed out.  He lay, slumped on the floor, eyes closed and face pale.

 

“Oh, you've got to be bloody joking!” she exclaimed.  She reached out and shoved hard at his shoulder, but he didn't react.  She turned back to the frame and the rift that was now the size of a fist.  What was she supposed to do?  The Doctor was the man with the plan!  Her ideas tended to extend only towards exploding things, and they'd just exhausted that option . . .

 

Or had they?  The lab wasn't exactly rubble just yet.

 

Ace did the only thing she could think of: she took out every piece of hardware she was carrying with the one hand that was not blue from its exposure to extreme cold.  She armed her devices one by one and lined them up on the floor.  Timed detonations.  Enough to take out the entire building; maybe the surrounding streets.  It wasn't very nuanced, but what else could she do?  The Shadowmen were still breaking through and if they made it, they'd pull this universe apart.  They didn't just want information now, they wanted revenge.  So if this was one last magnificently futile gesture before the end of the world, then so be it.  It was better than sitting back and letting it happen.

 

As soon as the explosives were rigged, Ace grabbed the Doctor and shook him soundly.  His eyes blinked open, but they were unfocused.  He probably didn’t even know where he was. 

 

Ace pulled him to his feet.  He wobbled but seemed able to do the things she directed.  She began to drag him over to a door she'd spotted at the far end of the room, beyond the banks of computers.  Leaving the way they'd arrived was not an option, so either this would give them an alternative way out or they'd find themselves a nice quiet storeroom to live out their final few minutes.

 

She flung open the door as soon as she reached it: a stairwell, blessedly rift-free.  Things were looking up.  She marched the Doctor down the stairs and tried not to think about how much his autonomous movements were like those of the possessed version of himself from the fisherman’s shack.  The door they came to at the bottom of the stairs cheered her up.  A small window was set within it showed a nice view of the street.

 

She tried the handle, but it wouldn’t turn.  Plan B, then.  Ace propped the Doctor up against the wall.  The way he slewed to one side was actually less disturbing than the fact that he stayed more-or-less put in mute obedience.

 

Running on a new wave of adrenaline, Ace pulled her blaster again and shot the bolt as she’d done to the front door.  The Doctor flinched at the noise, and Ace hoped it was a sign that he was coming out of his fugue.  She dug into one of his pockets, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and dragged him through the exit and out into the street. 

 

Ace hefted the Doctor's arm around her shoulders and looked around.  Unfortunately the destruction of the mirror upstairs had not done anything to halt the rifts consuming this planet.  Ace looked around, assessing the immediate danger.  In the sky, strange patches of color were forming like clouds.  Some rifts had even combined to digest entire chunks of the city.  Ace was frozen for a second, taking in the sight of a building passing into a rift.  As each part of it entered the other universe, it crumbled, the dust of the building borne away on a wind.

 

They needed to run.  Both of them.  The TARDIS was the only place they could be sure to be safe.  Ace slung her good arm around the Doctor's waist, thinking that if they were close enough together then he might feel compelled to do as she did.  Follow her lead, as he had when they'd escaped the lab.  Muscle memory or something.

 

She took a step and he matched it.  She took a few, quickening them gradually, and he kept pace.  With the Doctor at her side she half-ran, half-stumbled down the streets, following the sounds of the surf in a vain hope that the beach, at least, was still protected by the great fish.

 

The blast went off without warning.  Ace was running one second, then lifted, thrown through the air, and flat on her face the next.  She twisted around to look back, and to her horror, the explosion was captured, frozen in time.  It hung like a painting or a still-frame of an explosion in the air.  The edges of it flickered in and out from the brilliance of a fireball to something much darker.  The rift was consuming the explosion.

 

That was it then.  She’d failed.  One last chance, and it hadn’t helped.  Ace bit down on her anguish and offered a silent apology to the inhabitants of this doomed world.  All she could hope to do now was to get herself and the Doctor to safety.  Maybe save Terrin.

 

They had to move faster.  Ace stumbled to her feet.  The Doctor lay, sprawled and unresponsive, nearby.  She jerked at his arm again, but he gave no indication of having noticed.  She slapped him.  Still nothing.  Panicked, Ace pressed her head to his chest.  Heartsbeat was far too fast, but it was there. 

 

Ace put her arms around him and then lifted.  Her frozen arm screamed in protest, but she forced herself past the pain.  She didn’t have time for it.  She couldn’t carry the Doctor in the best circumstances, but she hoped she could drag him the necessary distance.  Not exactly the best idea, walking backwards through streets peppered with rifts and infovores, but she’d just have to deal with that.  She started stumbling toward the surf once more, trying to maintain a grip on the Doctor as well as keeping an eye out for rifts or hostiles. 

 

The infovore-possessed minions were nowhere in sight.  None emerged from the shadows.  None lurched out at them like Frankenstein’s monster bent on destruction.  All she saw were rifts full of darkness.

 

The roar of the waves was soon quite loud as she drew closer.  Ace was beginning to think they would be able to reach the shoreline without incident, when one of the rifts ruptured.  It had been standing, a solemn black mass that Ace scooted past, panting and focusing all her strength on her fatigued arms.  The rift squirmed within, as many of the others had, and as Ace began to get farther away from it, she actually believed she saw the edges of it bulge and ripple.  She was about to dismiss it as just another hallucination when the rift erupted, suddenly spilling out darkness in tendrils, which fell to the ground as though shadow had acquired some sort of mass.  It wriggled toward her, blotting out the pavement and the street as it came.

 

Ace dragged faster.  She would rather be mummified than leave the Doctor, but she knew that she was losing the race.  The darkness worming its way toward her was faster than she.  She thought about the sonic screwdriver, but she’d slipped it into her pocket when she and the Doctor had fled.  She hadn’t counted on dragging him through the streets.  Nor had she counted on it taking all her coordination just to keep going.  If she tried to get the screwdriver, she’d have to put down the Doctor, and the darkness would overtake him.

 

They passed another rift, and another.  Each lysed open as they passed, and the squirming darkness became a wall of reaching tendrils pressing ever forward.  Ace ducked down the narrow space between two buildings, hoping she wasn’t turned around.  Hoping that the beach would be on the other side of this house and that she could get there before the darkness.  And that it would make a difference.

 

The darkness consumed the building as it came after her.  It rolled into the alley, and bits of masonry went with it.  She had a horrible image of the buildings, having had their foundations eaten away, falling on top of her. 

 

She kept dragging.

 

The darkness reached for her with wispy, barely-there tendrils.  The cold preceded it, and her stinging frozen arm went completely numb.  The rest of her body wasn’t as fortunate, and the pain lanced through her.  Ace’s teeth began to chatter, her body began to shake.  She felt her legs start to go numb and she realized that in only a few seconds she would shut down.  The darkness would get them both.

 

With a grunt of desperation, Ace tugged the Doctor backwards even as her feet began to feel like they, too, were made of ephemeral darkness.  She took one more step and there was nothing there.  Ace gasped as she toppled backwards.  She hit white sand, which scattered about her. 

 

Ace heard her own yelp of pain.  The Doctor had landed on top of her.  She spent several seconds she probably didn't have catching her breath, working out whether he'd cracked her ribs.  Astonishingly, the darkness that had been nipping at her feet did not use this time to swallow her up.  Shaking off the grogginess, Ace looked around.

 

She'd actually fallen several feet.  She'd walked backwards right over a short drop that separated beach from promenade.  The rift was still there, but its tendrils seemed to like contact with each other rather than flying through the air.  It was creeping over the drop, careful as it slunk down towards her...

 

"God, will you just give it a _rest_!" she growled at it, more bravado than anything else.  Still, defiant to the last, she pushed at the Doctor's dead weight and managed to get to a sitting position.  With her good arm circling his chest, she used her legs and feet to dig against the sand and push them both backwards, inching painfully towards the sea.

 

She covered perhaps four pathetic feet or so like this, and the rift was all but upon her again, and then . . . something wonderful happened.  From behind her came a crash of surf breaking, and then suddenly the fish-song filled the air.  Ace glanced back, unable to help herself.  The first thing she saw was almost enough to demoralize her completely: there was a huddle of people not far off.  They clung to one another in terror, and nearest to Ace, there was a woman with the exact same hairdo as Meeka.  This was the huddle from the hotel.  This was the vision.  Even the sand made sense now.

 

Ace forced her eyes past the group and out to sea.  The fish were still there, dozens of them now, and they were all singing.  She looked back to the rift.  She could see the physical way it blanched from the sound, then it twisted on itself, then it fled back towards the city.

 

She laughed giddily and called after it, "Yeah!  And your mother!"

 

The giddy joy was gone as soon as it had come, though.  She needed to check on the Doctor.  She used what little strength she had left to roll him on to his side.  She collapsed facing him and fumbled for his heartsbeat.  It was still there. 

 

Relieved, Ace let herself fall back against the sand.  Her eye-line found the sky above the buildings that lined the beach.  There was a solid line of darkness that progressed along the invisible barriers established by the fish.  The song seemed to prevent rifts from forming in its audible sphere, as well as warding off the directed rifts.  The sea and the land were locked in combat over the fate of the planet.  The people who had managed to escape were huddled near the water.  In fact some of them were now in it, standing up to their waists in the shallows.  No doubt hoping the water would afford them some added measure of protection.

 

Ace had to get up.  She had to get the Doctor to the TARDIS.  Once there she could program in the dematerialization.  She wasn’t good enough to pilot the ship yet, but she could take them out of the space/time continuum, and at the moment that was all she needed.  She’d never turned her back on a fight, but sometimes the Doctor had dragged her away, kicking and screaming.  He’d told her that sometimes you lost.  That not everything was winnable, and though it seemed awful, in the end the final option was simply to run for your life.

 

But Ace _couldn’t move_.  Her legs didn’t feel so much pained as absent.  She didn’t want to know whether that was temporary, or whether they were now withered husks of legs that would never move again.  What was the Doctor supposed to do with a companion who couldn’t walk, anyway?

 

The Doctor chose that moment to stir and groan.  It seemed the fish-song was protecting his senses from whatever it was that kept making him konk out.  His eyes opened, but his pupils remained lopsided.  He didn't look in much better shape than she was.  He wasn’t going to be able to spring up and drag her the last leg. 

 

As though to confirm her suspicions, the Doctor whispered, “Ace.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I don’t think I can move.”

 

“That’s funny.  I can’t either.”

 

He gave her a disoriented smile.  “Isn’t that odd now?  That neither of us should be able to move?”

 

“Extremely odd.”

 

Ace used what little motor control she had left to snuggle closer to the Doctor.  Everything had taken on a vaguely surreal quality, and something within her had either broken, given up, or was sitting in a corner laughing its head off.  “You know what else is odd?” she asked, taking his hand in hers.

 

He blinked at their hands as she laced their fingers together one by one.  Then he looked up with a sweetly muzzy look on his face.  Nothing like the scheming Doctor she had come to know, and much more like the abstracted, easily flustered Professor she’d met on Iceworld.  “No,” he said.  “I have no idea what else might be odd about this situation.”

 

She leaned in and whispered her secret in his ear.  “I think your trip in time got it in one.  We’re going to die.”

 

The Doctor let out a chuckle.  Underneath the noise, six other men chuckled as well.  “I’ve lived for nine-hundred-and-fifty years.  Somehow, death holds very little fear for me.”

 

It wasn’t true for her, of course.  There was a part of her that was screaming to get up, to make one last run for the TARDIS and get them the hell off a dying planet.  That part of her couldn’t affect her frozen extremities, though. 

 

The Doctor, still chuckling softly to himself, leaned forward and pressed an off-center kiss to the corner of her mouth.  Ace turned into him and kissed him back, properly this time.  It was nothing passionate, but cushioned within those seconds of contact was all the affection that had built between them over a span of twelve years.  Nearly half her life realizing she was in love with an impossible man.  A nine-hundred-and-something-year-old alien. 

 

When she drew away, his eyes were still closed, dark lashes fanned out against pale skin.  He blinked his eyes open slowly, and she saw that the pupils were more balanced.  He focused on her and Ace wondered if there was anything else in the world left but the two of them.  She couldn’t see anything or hear anything.  There was just the Doctor and her, nose-to-nose and sprawled out on a soft field of white sand. 

 

“A dimensionally transcendental blue police box,” he said.

 

“What?”

 

“In the lab, you asked me a question.  The answer is: in a dimensionally transcendental blue police box.”

 

Ace felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of her.  She moved her arms with a mighty effort.  One remained pinned underneath her, but the other fell about his shoulders.  She tightened it to the best of her ability, her weak excuse for an embrace.

 

‘What the hell?’ she thought.  Out loud, so quiet he wouldn’t ever hear, Ace whispered, “I love you.”

 

And then, to her great surprise, the world went _white_.


	13. This is the Way the World . . .

Imagine, if you will, a lavender planet hanging in space, delicately rotating around a yellow sun.  The planet has a moon of pale jade rock.  When light reflects off its surface it bathes the world in ghostly green. 

 

For some time (no time in the cosmic scheme of things, of course, but as the galactic standard chronometer flies, some time) this gem dangling in the vast sea of the galaxy has been disappearing.  Since the tectonic plates shifted millennia before, remote posts of land were set up amidst the purple water.  These places, once colored brown and ringed with bright blue, have for some time been turning black.  It started in negligible dots, and then the dots took shape in their pointillist way, until large areas of one small continent were blackened.  Then the corrosion spread along the island chains to another land mass, and then another.  The entire planet has some sort of rot.

 

All but the purple seas.  These remain strangely clear, and the eyes which watch these sorts of things are puzzled by this.  Because this sort of incursion has happened before.  Not just on Mirocongia, but since the universe began, some planets have been winked out by the black.

 

Never before, though, has an entire part of a planet been immune to the effects of the lightless universe.  Never before has there been a resistance which has succeeded.  At first, these eyes credited the presence of one intrepid individual for this success, but they were incorrect.  What they could sense from him did not feel like victory.  Rather, they felt within him that inexplicable acceptance that Time Lords have for the inevitable.  Death had caught up with this one at last, and was shaking his hand for a chase well run.  Death, of course, always wins the games, but it does love an opponent who refuses to give up.

 

The eyes puzzle, but do not move.  They require further information.

 

Now zoom in.  The planet is no longer a bauble blotched with tar; it swells and becomes a recognizable world with oceans, continents, mountain ranges, ice caps.  And living beings, such as the blue haired natives of the ground who crowd their shorelines and think themselves alone and doomed.  But they are not alone.  Fish that move like Muthi interstellar gas dirigibles billow up from the depths of those oceans for the first time in their unspeakably long lives.  They break the surface and call epics to the others through the air. 

 

The darkness shudders.  There are sub-sonic frequencies in these songs that resonate harshly within the lightless universe.  The ultra-bass tones keep the corrosion from spreading into the sea.

 

And there are other things that live in the ocean.  These beings look up from the depths with a thousand pairs of luminous eyes and understand the lightless universe better than most.  Understand it enough to feel the need to put it back where it belongs.  This is, after all, their world too.

 

The song of the great fish is familiar to these oceanic beings; as familiar as the affectionate greeting of a neighbor.  The song has always kept the oceans safe, and always will, but alone the song can do no more.  It cannot drive the blackness away.  What is needed is power, amplification.  This can be done.

 

The amplifiers used by these beings are complex.  They use the ocean itself to transmit their sounds quickly and with minimal attenuation.  These amplifiers have never been pointed towards the surface (a place many of them believe to be mythical), but as the great fish swim upwards and the beings on the bottom feel the first shivers of the lightless universe encroach on their world, they focus those amplifiers towards their murky sky.  They use all the power they have to capture the sounds of the fish and put forth the same sounds even louder.  All over the planet, cities at the bottom of the oceans turn their faces and their technology to the heavens.

 

The lightless universe holds against the disruptive frequencies for several seconds, and the planet winks out, its stratosphere lost to the darkness.

 

The eyes watching all of this move in to take care of the situation through the only means they have devised. 

 

The first point of light is unexpected.  It appears as a fissure along the darkness; a point where matter of both universes has become so excited it burns.  Then, like a fire rushing through dry grasses, a white blaze sweeps across the planet: point to point, crack to crack.  For a brief instant the solar system has a second sun.  The watching eyes close at its splendor.

 

And then the light is gone.  The darkness is gone.  The eyes open once more, survey the planet a final time, and then leave.  There is nothing more for them to see. 

 

They don’t particularly care about the fate of two huddled beings on the beach.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

The sun was bright in the morning sky, warming the white sands even under the shallow lavender water.  The tide had come in as it always did.  Dark blonde hair was caught in its flow and ebb, weaving signs and sigils around the body to which it was attached.  The body—that of a human female—had lain in the shallows all through the previous night and on into the new morning.  As the sun had risen higher, the waters around her had turned blue.

 

A tiny, bug-eyed fish swam up to inspect the woman, whose head was half-immersed in the leading edge of the tide, face-up.  As waves drifted in and out, the water rose up and down her cheeks.  The fish swam in close and, with the delicacy of a gourmand, sucked on an earlobe.

 

Ace opened her eyes, then squinted against the glare of the sun.  She reached up and shooed the fish away with a gentle sweep of her hand, then sat up and looked at it darting away through the shallows.  “Little creatures,” she whispered to herself.

 

She turned and looked at the Doctor.  He was either awake or asleep with his eyes open.  Either way, he was looking directly into the sun.

 

“You shouldn’t do that,” she murmured.  “It’s bad for your eyes.”

 

“I have immensely resilient eyes.”

 

She looked down at him, at the placid look on his face.  “We didn’t die,” she said.

 

“I had noticed that.”

 

“Why didn’t we die?”

 

He continued to stare up into the sun.  “Because this planet, apparently, didn’t need us to sort out its problems.”

 

“That’s a new one.”

 

“Yes.  I rather like it.”

 

“The people are gone.”

 

“They went back into the city when the sun came out again.”

 

“And we were just anonymous lumps in the surf, were we?”

 

“I have to admit, I rather like that too.”

 

Ace looked out over the purple ocean.  The great fish had long since departed, leaving a palpable absence in their wake.  With the people gone as well, she felt almost as though they had beached on some unknown and uninhabited shore.  Their very own desert island.

 

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, his expression thoughtful.  He sat up.  They were both soaked through, but the shallows were warm.  Warmer than the air even, and Ace shivered.  Her plait had come out, and her hair hung dripping down her back. 

 

“I seem to remember that we started all this soaked, as well,” the Doctor said.  He hesitated and then said, “We could stay a few more days.  Have a real holiday.”

 

Ace arched a brow.  “Yeah, this is a real hotspot.  Think of it.  Strolling down streets that were filled with infovores only yesterday.  _That’d_ be relaxing.  Especially when the authorities manage to clear the dead bodies and rubble away.  And then we can head back to the hotel.  Maybe—if we’re _really_ lucky—we can avoid having visions of our own horrific deaths.”

 

“Well . . .” the Doctor said, sounding abashed.

 

Ace continued, “And even if all that works out, I’ll still be sitting up nights waiting to see a pair of little girls standing at the end of a hall saying ‘Come play with us’.”

 

The Doctor made a confused noise.

 

“_The Shining_ again.”

 

“Ah.  If you keep referencing it, I think we might need to go and see it.  Maybe even attend the premiere.  What year was it released?”

 

“We could do that.  In about five years, when I’m not ready to crawl out of my skin with the creeps.”  Ace shook her head, and water droplets fell about her in glittering arcs.  “The point I was trying to make is that this planet is not currently topping my list of desirable getaways.”

 

“Somewhere else, then?” he ventured.  Before she could say anything, he held up his hands and added, “Somewhere that doesn’t involve _The Shining_.  I promise.”

 

Ace had to chuckle at that.  It felt nice, if tinged with resignation.  She said, “Face it, Professor.  There’s nowhere in the real universe we can go without mayhem dogging our footsteps.  The only way we’ll be able to grab a break is to park in the vortex and take the phone off the hook.”

 

“We’ll have to send Terrin home first.”

 

“Good point.”

 

He cocked his head and regarded her with a penetrating gaze.  “And is that what you want?”

 

Ace stood up, looking out over the horizon.  With her back turned on the city, the planet still looked idyllic.  She drew a deep breath because that was the thing to do when standing on a shore looking at the sea.  Unfortunately, this prompted a minor coughing fit, because the air was filled with dust and the smell of burning from the city behind them.  Ace got her breathing under control and wiped the moisture from her eyes.  She remembered the way the rifts had torn structures apart, moved sections of them, carried them along.  When the rifts had been destroyed, where had that left the infrastructure of the city?  She wasn't sure she wanted to know.  Another reason to cut the 'holiday' short . . .

 

It made her wonder whether the Shadowmen had been a coincidental occurrence that would have happened here with or without the presence of a TARDIS, or whether the Doctor _had _somehow brought the turmoil with him, just as she'd remarked before all of this began.  She'd been with him long enough to see the patterns.  Sometimes it seemed that all the bad stuff in the universe really was his faithful shadow.  Maybe there was even a point to this.  Maybe the universe wanted good to win in the end and knew the Doctor could make it happen.  There was no way of knowing; ancient universal forces weren't about to take her to one side and explain their motivations over tea and biscuits.  But the hypothesis seemed workable, not to mention infinitely preferable to the idea that the Doctor was just unlucky with his mayhem-magnetism.

 

Ace smiled a wistful, small smile and said, "I say we dematerialize, set ourselves adrift, and see what happens."  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as he stepped up to join her, looking out over the waves.  Now that the crisis was past and they had time to slow down, there were other issues to resolve.  She hadn't forgotten what the Doctor had said as they'd waited for death yesterday.  The question was, had he said it _because _they'd been facing death, or had he worked through the post-kissing terror and decided to embrace this newfound relationship?  Did they even have a newfound relationship?  Could she have heard the words, but still got hold of the wrong end of the stick?  Because technically the Doctor had indicated both ways.

 

Perhaps it was time to stop dwelling on what _he _was thinking and doing and indicating.  At the end of the world, the only thing she'd needed to say was, 'I love you.'  Maybe the whole thing was doomed to failure, but even so, she realized that she wanted to make the most of it.  This was a risk she was willing to take.  Now the ball was in the Doctor's court.

 

She shot him another glance and saw that he was staring out over the ocean.  His tone was soft and musing when he said, “My calculations were inconclusive.”

 

“Your what?”

 

“My calculations.  I was attempting to determine whether or not I’m in love with you, but given the available data, I couldn’t quantify it.”

 

Ace laughed.  The Doctor looked slightly affronted.  “You tried to quantify love?” she asked.  How could she explain this?  How could she make him see that not everything was scientific?  Some things simply had to be experienced.  Sometimes you had to accept that you wouldn’t ever understand the whys and wherefores.  Could the Doctor even grasp that concept?  “Professor,” she said, deciding that the only approach was the direct one, “_nobody_, not even you, can do that.  You’re either in love or you aren’t.”

 

“Yes, but how can you tell?”

 

She took a step toward him, once again closing the gap, and she put a hand on his shoulder, close to the collar.  One of her fingers rested on the skin of his neck.  “Do you want to know how?” she asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“All right.  How do you feel when you catch sight of me unexpectedly?”

 

He looked confused.  “I’m sorry, what?”

 

So this wasn’t going to be as easy as it might have been.  Ace was ready for that.  “Consider it an experiment.”  When his confusion didn’t abate much, she took her hand off his shoulder and said, “Just answer the questions, okay?”

 

Still unconvinced, the Doctor muttered, “Oh, very well,” and put on his pedantic look.  “I feel surprised, I suppose, as it’s unexpected.”

 

First question down, and not a great response.  Ace wasn’t about to give up, though.  “What about when I’m not around?  Do you think about me?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Better, that.  Time for something a bit more personal.  “And do you worry I won’t ever come back?”

 

He glanced away from her and said, “Every time you go.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Why do you worry?”

 

His pedantic look had been fading steadily as they’d gone further into personal questions.  Now his brow was furrowed with thought, and his eyes were distant.  Maybe he was hunting for answers in places he hadn’t looked for a long time.  “I’d miss you,” he concluded.  “You know that.”

 

Right.  No question left but the big one.  “And how did you feel when we kissed?”

 

As expected, his expression shuttered for several seconds.  When it opened up a little, he had that searching expression again.  It also had a strained quality, as though he was pushing the boundaries of what he was capable of expressing and feeling.  “I . . . I don’t know,” he whispered.  His eyes pleaded with her to leave it at that.

 

It wasn’t going to happen.  “Try again.”

 

Her words were a lit match to petrol fumes, and the Doctor’s frustration flared into life.  “I can’t!” he exploded, looking directly at her.  “Don’t you understand?  I don’t have a reference point!  I can’t make sense of what I felt, because these things don’t have names!”

 

She didn’t let herself think.  She just grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him.  It started out as angry as the first kiss they’d shared, but in seconds it melted into something gentler and infinitely more passionate.  After a while, she forced herself to draw back, leaving one hand on his shoulder.  The Doctor remained standing, his eyes closed and his head bowed.  Ace said, “Sodding well try.”

 

“Confusion.  Uncertainty, terror, worry.”  His mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds, then his eyes opened, shock and realization clear in them.  “Excited.  Warm.”  He sagged.  “Good.”

 

She smiled.  “And if I told you I loved you?”

 

“You already did,” he said.

 

Despite her resolve, Ace still felt flustered.  “So you did hear that.”

 

His lips twitched in something approaching a smile.  “Very resilient eyes.  Very keen ears.”

 

“And when I said it?”  She didn’t think she had to prompt him further. 

 

He nodded.  “Terror,” he repeated.  Then he sighed.  “And excited.  And worried.  And good.”

 

“Well,” she said, “I’m at least convinced you’re fond of me.”

 

“I’ve always been fond of you.”

 

“Hmm.  But being in love . . . that’s one of the universe’s intangibles.  There’s no simple answer.  No formula or proof.”

 

“Oh.”  He sounded disappointed.  Then he peered at her.  “Then why all the questions?”

 

She shrugged.  “Just an excuse, really.  A chance to hear you say nice things.”

 

His head tilted back and he tried to look stern.  “Manipulative,” he accused.

 

“So?  You don’t have the monopoly.”

 

His stern look cracked with an affectionate smile.  “So what do we do now?”

 

Ace let her fingers creep up his collar and run a light caress over his neck.  He shivered and she felt a certain sense of empowerment.  “Now?” she asked.  “What can I say, Professor?  I want to try.  I want to spend some time together and see where this takes us.”

 

“Adrift,” he said.

 

“Adrift.”

 

“Adrift seems appropriate,” he said.  “Something quiet and unknown.”

 

“And really quite lovely if you’ve got the eyes to see it.”

 

The Doctor regarded her in an odd way.  Ace, with her dripping, salt-encrusted hair, her makeup-less face, her soaked and clinging clothes including one soggy armored vest.  “Yes,” he said.  “Yes, it is.”

 

She took his hand.  He stepped in close and pressed a quick, gentle kiss against her lips.  Then he started walking.  Ace followed.  Their footsteps were imprinted and then washed away as they made for the cove and the TARDIS.

 

“Adrift,” the Doctor said once more, and he sounded content.


End file.
